Is it legal?

[Rich DJ 0]

I started using a laptop running PCDJ Red a couple of months ago and not (yet) had any problems.

 

Is it actually legal to copy your CDs onto MP3 and use them for a disco? What proof of ownership do you need if you get 'busted on the job'. Can someone else use your CDs at another disco at the same time?

[ChrisPointon 0]

This is a little bit of a grey area for D.J's. I know that using downloaded MP3's or copied Cd's is illegal, full stop, but the law is unclear if you own the original disc. Maybe somebody could email the R.I.A.A or PPL to find out and post their reply on here. I may get around to it this afternoon http://www.chrispointon.f2s.com/Forum/html/emoticons/smile.gif .

 

In the meantime, if you are worried about the risk of you being discovered using MP3's, then this article, posted in another thread may be of use to you.

 

Note that I don't condone using MP3's, but I know that a large majority of D.J's do http://www.chrispointon.f2s.com/Forum/html/emoticons/smile.gif and my role is to advise and sell equipment (Not music or CD's) so I don't judge!.

 

Here is the article, and I can confirm that it came from a reliable source "in the know".

 

Interestingly, for those who actively use mp3's for their set. I have been forwarded a copy of a article in a trade publication. It's almost 18 months old so I don't know if it is still valid, but it may be useful information should the need arise.

 

It deals, with what to do in the event that your venue gets a "visit". Usually any investigation is instigated and carried out by the local trading standard office. In order to take action against you for using or possessing MP3's or illegal copyrighted material they need to obtain proof - i.e cease and view your cd's or the offending material. Interestingly - according to this article, in order to do this they:-

 

(1) If its a private function, have the permission of the venue owner or the hirer to enter

 

OR:-

 

(2) Have a warrant and be accompanied by the police to gain access without permission of the above mentioned

 

Even so once inside, any property of yours cannot be viewed or ceased without your permission, or the production of a signed and valid warrant.

 

The information then goes on to describe how T.S operate on a fear principle, mainly relying on the fact that you will not know your rights and hand over your collection without any warrant or fuss.

 

Interestingly, according to the article, in order for T.S to get a warrant raised and signed by a local magistrate they need to have at least some evidence or "reasonable grounds" of suspicion. In the case of people trading on market stalls / computer fairs etc, this usually means obtaining photographs and undercover T.S officials actually buying the copyright material from the trader.

 

Given this fact, I am wondering how they are going to prove a case against a working D.J?, methinks at the moment they are concentrating on the people doing this directly "For Profit" - i.e selling on via market stalls or internet forums (one of the reasons why I won't allow this sort of trading on here).

 

If you weigh up these facts, then to a D.J the risk is low, but it is stll a risk nevertheless and it comes down to the individual whether you actively use Mp3's or not.

 

Disclaimer:-

 

I'm not trained in legal matters and therefore take no responsibilty for the informaton given above, which was taken from a trade only publication Dated Jan 2002 and posted in good faith.

[The Spindoctor 0]

Which does bring up something I was going to say last night but decided to let go as it was late.

 

If we are referring to 'performance' of Mp3's and I refuse them access to my laptop or equipment then the case is not proved, if they have no warrant then situation over! Even if it were proved the only track I would be liable for would be one I was playing.

 

£1000 per track it may be but how many 'actual' DJ's do we know have been prosecuted??? None to my knowledge.

 

I still think that number of DJ's v prosecutions it is a miniscule chance and unless they suddenly change tactics the risk is minimal.

[ChrisPointon 0]

Interestingly another rumour going around is that the R.I.A.A are turning to UK ISP's in order to shop heavy P2P (Kazaa etc) users. Basically the rumour is that if your ISP suddenly spots a sudden surge in your bandwidth (adsl users) and internet use (Dial up users), then it would monitor your usage and for what purpose.

 

I have a feeling that this is just scare tactics by the R.I.A.A, certainly any ISP would also need a warrant to investigate your usage on the internet and it would have the privacy advocates leaping up and down by now.

 

There was a story going around that a certain ISP backbone provider had prosecuted a number of ADSL users for mass downloading of Films from Kazaa, although I stress that this was just a rumour and I haven't heard anything since, I'm sure it would have made headline news had there been any truth in it.

[DjbigNige 0]

My first entry, and it's about being a PC DJ using PCDJ, I brought a PC for "gigging use" only. That means no other programmes on it except for sound adjusting my music (mp3trim, cool edit) I sometimes connect to the web to do an on line virus check (www.pandasoftware.com).

 

I have a slide out spare hard drive with an exact copy of my music in case of problems. It has never crashed yet, I am very pleased with the sound quality, (nothing under 160kbs) and using the log feature quickly builds up to give an idea of what you play week after week.

 

I no longer spend ages looking through my CD collection looking for that track that I played 6 months ago, a quick search tells me if I have or have not got the track, and ripping over my CD's to the pc means that i have cut out the "dud" tracks that used to fill up compilation albums.

 

I do find it funny that fellow pro's worry about which is best, I can remember the same debate a number of years ago when moving from vinyl to CD's.

 

I also made sure I brought a legal copy of PCDJ from Emmision, www.emmisionuk.com who run an excellent web site and forum on their pages, any probs I have had I have posted them on the forum and had a reply back very quickly, the advantage of having a legal copy is that you get updates foc.

 

So the moral of this story, if you are going to move over to PC, do it right, spend out the money and get a powerful PC with a fast processor and lots of ram.

 

And remember the only constant is that everything does and will change, otherwise we will all be using 78's!!

[The Spindoctor 0]

You sure you're not my alter ego or long lost brother Nige? I've been saying these same things for weeks!! LOL but I prefer Mixmeister!!

[NineLives 0]

Are you using PCDJ Red Pro with the new Dac-2 Controler ? or the PC on its own, how do you find the songs with this controler , or do you still need the keyboard on the computer ?

 

 

[DjbigNige 0]

QUOTE (NineLives @ Apr 22 2003, 05:25 PM)

Are you using PCDJ Red Pro with the new Dac-2 Controler ? or the PC on its own, how do you find the songs with this controler , or do you still need the keyboard on the computer ?

Glad you asked me about this, no I use the keyboard only, I only use the mouse for clicking on the programme at the begining of the evening. I was speaking to a fellow "pro" about the same thing recently and he still needs the keyboard to hunt for his tracks, I can see nothing much in the controller then it being an expensive start button! (you can "cue" and adjust the itch just the same from the keyboard).

 

I have used nothing more complicated then cut down sticky labels over the keys to stop/start/cue etc.

 

Without wishing to sound "smug" I did two things, 1. was to watch a fellow professional use it for about 6 to 9 months and learn from his ideas and mistakes, and 2. I read the manual from cover to cover and practised, practised, and practised some more until I felt 110% confident to use it.

 

I reckon it was 4 months from buying the pc to when I first used it along side my existing Numark Cd player, 2 gigs later I ditched the Numark and cd's and have never looked back.

 

Back up?, yes I carry a sony mini disc player with about 3 to 4 mini discs covering a "normal night", but then I used to do the same thing when I was using CD's.

 

Of course it is a very good talking point with the customers as well!!

 

As I said earlier, embrace the future, cause it is the future, you do the same thing in other parts of your lives, otherwise I am speaking to a load of people with Mark one Cortina's and black & white teles!!!

[Dannyk 0]

http://www.chrispointon.f2s.com/Forum/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif Same for me nige, been on pc for four years PCDJ Red on a dedicated PC P4 1.7G with 1GB Ram. I used the keyboard no need for the Dac thing the F Keys work fine! I have all my cd on a shelf in year piles and albums as easy ref in case anyone ask's "Have you got a leagal copy" my machine never goes on line any more because it works great. I back my DJ PC up to my server every week with nortons Ghost V7 with makes a complete image of all Hard disks through the Network cable!

 

I think it all ace and the karaoke play list goes down loads easyer than CD+G disc!

 

Danny K

[Dukesy 0]

COPYING IS ILLEGAL - NO MATTER WHAT MEDIA YOU USE!

 

When mini-disc came out, a DJ from the South East was 'caught' playing recordings.

 

He was taken to court by the represented companies and not only fined, but costs too.

 

He nearly lost his house!!!!

 

Be careful folks - use a bit of common, eh?

 

The PPL are wound up as it is and don't need an excuse to focus on disc jockeys.

[mikeee 0]

This discussion wouldn't be happening if the antiquaited grey suits, packed up there bags and went to siberia and let the people that are "IN TOUCH" run the music biz.

 

http://www.chrispointon.f2s.com/Forum/html/emoticons/1106.gif Box time

[ChrisPointon 0]

QUOTE

COPYING IS ILLEGAL - NO MATTER WHAT MEDIA YOU USE!

 

True, but lets get it into prospective.

 

So is speeding, and I'm sure that you can't hold you head up and say i've never done 32 mph in a 30 zone?? - and with possible far greater consequences for you AND maybe somebody else.

 

Another point - Buy a CD in woolies and pay £19.99 buy the same one and pay £12.45 in the US. Same recording company, same artiste, same CD - why is it so expensive over here??. People are quick to jump on other people for using MP3 formats, yet thay are perfectly willing to be ripped off every time they buy a cd and turn a blind eye to it. Work out how much you spend extra on the 40 Cd's you may buy in a month than your American colleagues are paying. Now tell me what you have done to put this right and balance the equation??.

 

I remember a time when the word "DJ" (Look it up in an old dictionary) partly meant "Advertiser of music", based on this fact surely we should be getting discounts?, or freebies from the recording companies. I remember the day when this used to happen, sign up to a company - a pile of 12" dropped through your letter box, fill in a Dancefloor reaction sheet and more arrived the next month http://www.chrispointon.f2s.com/Forum/html/emoticons/smile.gif .

 

Why has this stopped?, because the likes of DMC and Mastermix are charging you silly amounts of money to subscribe to it!!!. Hmm, The Artist(e) is making money, the R.I.A.A are making money, Mastermix are making money, you are doing all of the work and promoting the music and WHAT! - SPENDING MONEY!!! - so basically how much has it cost you to promote that artiste's new track to your 400 strong audience?.

 

You are out 4 nights a week say, 1600 People hear that new track at least a small percentage will buy it. Multiply that by how many D.J's subscribe to MM or DMC and, Hey, thats good advertising and sales for them and you've paid them for the privilidge of doing it!.

 

I wonder how many D,J's on here have played an Mp3, before it was released?? only to have somebody come over and ask it it was by?, say that person goes away and buys the CD single when its released - hey that is a referal to the artiste, another sale for them and another coat of wax on their Jag.

 

Again, I don't condone the use of MP3's, but I don't criticise people for it either, especially in the UK where we pay 30% more for the same music than the rest of the world. Certainly, if everybody scrapped their laptops and bought CD's my Dual Player sales would pick up http://www.chrispointon.f2s.com/Forum/html/emoticons/smile.gif .

 

If all the D.J's in the world stopped playing music by certain artists then the recording industry would be hit far greater than it has by the rise in Mp3 use. Don't believe it?, then why do artists such as Eminem go into a big sulk when there song is banned on radio airplay, think about it!.

 

Maybe its about time D.J's got a fair deal on music since they are promotors after all, just like the recording companies. Besides if T/S really want to prosecute people they can start with my local computer fair where 70% of the material OPENLY on sale is pirated, and for no reason other than pure profit. At least the D.J is promoting their music and NOT distributing copies en masse.

 

This post is not an excuse for D.J's to use MP3's as part of a set nothing can excuse breaking the law, but you can see how many may feel slightly cheated, and perhaps justified at downloading the odd new release which isn't commerically available in HMV. Yes, MM and DMC have looked at the old free policy and thought "We can be making money at this", the free new releases stopped, and we are daft enough to pay for the tracks we used to get for free, 15 years ago!.

[ChrisPointon 0]

Following the above post, I looked at what I spent on CD's (Singles and compilations) on my last accounts, not including DMC subs. It worked out at £2392. Thats an average of around £46 a week. Had I been in the US the same purchases would have cost me £1674.40 - A saving of £717.60 for the same music.

 

Looking around the net at US outlets, Amazon etc music cd's are an average of around 25% - 32% cheaper abroad, maybe its time we joined Mikeee and campaigned for a change, at least for our industry!.

[OK KARAOKE 1]

Two peeps in my area have had their gear confiscated for using laptops with MP3s and MP3+G Karaoke.

I actually think that it was the karaoke which brought it to the attention of Trading Standards.

One guy was the compere of a local Political club who apparently spent his nights bragging to all and sundry that he had the best music and karaoke collection in the UK (modest, what!). It must have got a bit too much for someone as he was "bubbled".

The club was raided and he and his laptop were carted away.

His home was then raided and all his PC and music equipment confiscated.

I understand that a Court Case is still pending.

---

This is why my laptop now remains at home http://www.chrispointon.f2s.com/Forum/html/emoticons/sad.gif

 

[The Spindoctor 0]

I think provided you know where you stand with Trading Standards, and are fairly clued up the risk is minimal. Anybody could have a laptop at a gig not necessarily using it for Mp3's either, did'nt we all carry A4 looseleaf catalogues of our records??? Now we use computer power instead. When they walk in who is to say it was Mp3 CD or Vinyl playing? At the end of the day they only have the right to look at your equipment if you LET THEM unless they have a warrant.

 

Which goes back to what Chris said in another post Parties and such at your local village hall are PRIVATE and they need a warrant to enter, a warrant which would have to be applied for in advance with reasonable grounds. How do they know when your next appearance at the village hall is ?????

 

The people who are at risk to my mind are clubs and the like where a DJ is present night in night out.

 

There are to many variables for the standard mobile jock to get caught out, by the very nature of the job we could be in 5 different places a week!!

 

As I was told many moon ago they are not after little fish they are after wholesale profit like the computer fairs, market stalls of CD's and Videos, and does it stop it? No it just means the computer fairs now put them under the table instead of on top.

[Dukesy 0]

If you look at Mp3's vs white labels - is there a major difference when a Club DJ is playing the new banging tune from Ibiza, when it uses samples and riffs from copyright material?

 

Can't see how T/s can afford to follow all the Djs? They must have better things to do??

[The Spindoctor 0]

now theres a thought heh heh heh I have boxes and boxes of white labels

 

So I tell the T/S they are my original copies of my Mp3's and they have to sit down and listen to perhaps 15yrs of white label stuff???

 

Hmmmmm http://www.chrispointon.f2s.com/Forum/html/emoticons/cool.gif

[DjbigNige 0]

Read with interest about the DJ in the South East who got caught with Mp3's we have heard the same story except we heard he was "up north"!!

 

Reading the Daily Express today, I read that EMI have finally woken up to the MP3 revolution and will offer downloads at sensible prices and (not before time) offer new release tracks for download at the same time the radio / video stations are playing them (instead of 2 months before).

 

We are very lucky in our group as we do get sent pre-release material as it goes on the radio stations play list and have avoided using Kazza etc, however I can not blame any one for using these forms of music downloading.

 

Once again, I use the past as an example, in the sixties Offshore Radio was illegal, but due to public pressure we got radio 1, the same with landbased pirate in the early 80's gave us more radio stations.

 

The music companies missed the the boat with MP3's, remember how they hiked up prices when "Joe Public" moved over from vinyl to CD, Joe Public has driven this current revolution!!

 

The future? CD's will become another dead format within 5 years, and you will pay for dowloads, with serious punishment for illeagal posting/downloading of copyrighted music.

 

So where does this put all the people who will use this avenue of getting their new music, and if MP3's are illeagal, where does this put the 1000's of people who have dowloaded music from such places as www.dotmusic.com and www.hmv.co.uk??

[DjbigNige 0]

QUOTE (The Spindoctor @ Apr 22 2003, 04:23 PM)

You sure you're not my alter ego or long lost brother Nige? I've been saying these same things for weeks!! LOL but I prefer Mixmeister!!

hi Spindoctor,

 

One of group has Mixmeister and has been using it for home mixing, we had a meet about it today......impressive!!,

 

Need to check it out further though and to read the instruction manual!!.

 

 

[ChrisPointon 0]

Anybody fancy starting a "links" section for downloading Demo versions / Buying full versions of popular PC based software for mixing / D.J'ing. We seem to have several people promoting various popular titles without actually offering a place to buy / obtain a copy.

 

May be useful for anybody looking for that info, and i'll make it a Pinned Topic.

 

Anybody?..Anybody? http://www.chrispointon.f2s.com/Forum/html/emoticons/smile.gif

[The Spindoctor 0]

Well the link for Mixmeister is fairly simple

 

www.Mixmeister.com

 

downloadable demo version avaiable to play with ( don't try to use it gigging its switches off after 20 minutes!!!)

 

(Sorry did'nt know how to post it as a clickable link)

 

There you go http://www.chrispointon.f2s.com/Forum/html/emoticons/wink.gif http://www.chrispointon.f2s.com/Forum/html/emoticons/050.gif

Edited April 25, 2003 by NineLives

[mobile_dj_crooks 0]

OK, the RLAA has said if you have a orignal copy, you can use it to make a mp3 format file to store and use, as long as you don't distrubute it.

[The Spindoctor 0]

And of course we all have the original copy don't we............. don't we??????? http://www.chrispointon.f2s.com/Forum/html/emoticons/unsure.gif