Copyright Question

I am not at all knowledgeable of media copyright laws. So my question is, if I already own a title in a low-res format, and a friend makes a copy of the same material in hi-res and gives it to me, are any laws broken? For that matter, if I own a stereo release of a title and a friend gives me a ripped copy of the same title in a multi channel format, are any laws broken?

LuvMyQuad said:

I am not at all knowledgeable of media copyright laws. So my question is, if I already own a title in a low-res format, and a friend makes a copy of the same material in hi-res and gives it to me, are any laws broken? For that matter, if I own a stereo release of a title and a friend gives me a ripped copy of the same title in a multi channel format, are any laws broken?

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This is not a question that belongs in a poll thread, so if a mod can move it to another thread, that would be great.

rtbluray said:

This is not a question that belongs in a poll thread, so if a mod can move it to another thread, that would be great.

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..and now that it's been moved here who would like to handle this veritable hot potato..?

Well, my best guess is that, if it has a different catalog number you are supposed to purchase it.
So, owning the LP wouldn't mean you can download the RBCD rip or owning the Hi-rez download in stereo wouldn't mean you can download a rip of the MC (legally), etc.
This is all guessing, but it seems reasonable to me.

I'd go along with edisonbaggins. I have no doubt that getting a ripped multi-channel mix when you only have the stereo mix is going to break a copyright law.

LuvMyQuad said:

I am not at all knowledgeable of media copyright laws. So my question is, if I already own a title in a low-res format, and a friend makes a copy of the same material in hi-res and gives it to me, are any laws broken? For that matter, if I own a stereo release of a title and a friend gives me a ripped copy of the same title in a multi channel format, are any laws broken?

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That depends on which side of the fence you are sitting. If you own a record company then it is viewed as illegal. If you are a consumer then it is not viewed as illegal.

Mike the Fish said:

I'd go along with edisonbaggins. I have no doubt that getting a ripped multi-channel mix when you only have the stereo mix is going to break a copyright law.

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Yeah....but imagine. Who's in worse trouble? The one making the copy or the one accepting it? :banana:

Now, can a distinction be made between illegal and immoral?

Let's talk OOP. Neither the artist nor label benefit. They are actually hurt, as the collective budget for new releases is cut.
Is it ok to obtain OOP rips? Maybe support the artist by buying another version of the title?
This actually benefits them!

I very recently came under fire for providing a link to HDTT which 'specializes' in making high res physical copies and providing high res downloads from Open Reel Tapes. I also stated that not all of their offerings are from Open Reel but some are from 15/30 ips and DSD masters which I assume are NOT in the public domain but have been licensed from the respective artists.

And while we're on the subject.......MOST artists today derive very little income from sales of physical discs/including vinyl and most especially from downloads. The BULK of their income is derived from touring and merchandise sales at concert venues.

And of course, nothing has been said about the individual who has purchased the VERY SAME album OVER THE YEARS in different formats (8 track/cassette/R to R/RBCD/SACD/DVD~A/BD~A etc. because a new upgraded remaster has been struck or it's now available in 5.1.

And as we ALL know: repurchasing a newly remastered album is NO guarantee of an upgrade as dismal DR scores can testify to that unfortunate phenomenon.

I would in no way promulgate pirating as I DO purchase all my music legally....I have NEVER engaged in illegal downloading but when I read all this concern over the poor starving artists and record conglomerates all I can think about is "How About, WE, the consumer" who have continually been burned/RIPPED OFF over the years with shoddy mastering, Loudness wars hoopla, etc....and not accessing the VERY best masters available IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!!!!!! And every time one purchases a 16/44.1 RBCD......we are NOT getting the benefit of the BEST that's available in this day and age. RBCD is NOT hi res and nor is vinyl......it just sounds different!

As for purchasing from HDTT, I will continue to do so as it's NOT my concern but should be the concern of the record companies themselves to police what is and isn't released on the world wide net! The company has been in business for YEARS without incident so I 'assume' some sort of arrangement has been proffered with the record companies in order for this company to expand and flourish....as it HAS!

Copyright laws are pretty clear that the artist has the only right to sell their work, unless they license that right to another entity to sell on their behalf. In theory, any unauthorized copy of the work represents a lost sale.

In order to benefit the artist and/or record label, you must buy a new copy from a legal distributor. Otherwise they do not get the money. This applies to the purchase of "used" official product too. Originally when "used records" became a thing the record labels came out in opposition and challenged the practice of their resale, but obviously they lost that battle. In the matter of home taping on Phillips compact analog cassettes, the labels got a fee added to the sale of blank tape which was then remitted back to them to compensate for presumed lost sales.

At this time it is easy to access recorded material for free. The internet has in some measure cheapened all easily digitized content. I am a photographer among other things, and I sat in a room and watched one of my images (which was posted on the web without my knowledge) projected as part of a talk, and thereby used without a fee. So the question does extend beyond recorded music.

I think edisonbaggins has it right. Many uses may be technically illegal, but maybe not immoral. 4-earredwonder brings up excellent points. How many copies of Dark Side of the Moon have I purchased... many! And are all copies made to top technical specification?

So I ask myself, how much do I care about supporting the artist? Does an artist have an interest in you buying legal copies, or is s/he being ripped off by industry? I can say that record labels do serve a function in the business, and certainly the support staff such as engineers and producers are reliant on them for a paycheck.

As for out of print titles, this is where my moral line is clear. If the artist/label will not offer an officially released product to me for legal purchase, I feel I have the right to seek it out as a fan of the work and obtain a copy, whether in aftermarket sales or download. I try not to support excessive profiteering from sales for which neither the label nor the artist will ever see a dime. If the title is in print, I try to buy legitimate copies, although I have purchased plenty of used official product in my day.

But if you are concerned about copyright and wanting to live up to the letter of the law, buy new from official sources. This is particularly helpful to new or small-time independent artists. If you can hand the money to the artist directly, all the better!

Hey... Old Dudes out there... !!
We've certainly been down this long and winding road before haven't we??
I find it interesting that this question pops up every few years.
There is no easy answer here and this time I will now just shut my face. holland out.

This is one of those questions that if you have to ask, you already know the answer.

No matter how we may feel, if we feel wronged, or deserving, if we feel ripped off or fortunate, the true legal sense of the word is that if it is not an original purchase from a legit source, then it's stealing.

No company or artist offered free CD's to replace our albums back in the '80s.

"And away we go...................."

If someone could ever set up a payment site that allowed those honest music lovers who are willing to pay the royalties to the artist and manufacture personal copies of a recording, I would pay. Just try getting all the artists and record companies to agree...

And lest we feel sorry for the poor starving artists and record conglomerates, one only has to watch the annual Grammy Awards. There is likely more money and glitz in that room than any of us, with FEW exceptions, are likely to see in our lifetimes.

And perhaps the starving artist should either change agents or find another profession which will support their lifestyle.

Bottom Line: Give us a product manufactured to the "highest standards" and "We Will Come!" or risk the slings and arrows of outrageous MISfortune!

While we're on the subject of "infringement"........how about customer infringement.

A few factoids: Miles' Kind of Blue was released in 1959. Until the mid nineties, ALL physical disc medium was manufactured and sold at the wrong speed until Mark Wilder adjusted the pitch and FINALLY released Miles Masterpiece at the CORRECT SPEED.

Verve's 1964 Getz/Gilberto was released with reversed front channels UNTIL Analogue Productions FINALLY released it on high quality vinyl and SACD in the corrected form.

I just repurchased XTC's Skylarking (the 'corrected polarity edition') as ALL prior releases since the album was released in 1986 had been pressed in reversed polarity.

Only three [probably scant] examples of shoddy releases and did any one of these artists/record conglomerates ever offer to replace the countless thousands (millions) of defective product with corrected ones. Oops, statute of limitations!

I will NEVER advocate PIRACY.......but it seems that a great deal of PIRACY on the Artists/Record Conglomerate part has been/is being perpetrated against the consumer with NO statute of LIMITATIONS in sight!

hahaha - gotta love this topic. :banana:

Well, weather it is illegal or not, how would the record company know if you don't tell them. For the record though I do not copy, I buy.

Has anyone ever determined whether HDTT (High Definition Tape Transfers) is 'legit' (its releases are properly licensed from the record companies) or not?

EDIT: ah, never mind,I see this has been mostly answered already (the answer seems to be 'not')

https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...ACD-(Jan-2017)&p=322768&viewfull=1#post322768

ssully said:

Has anyone ever determined whether HDTT (High Definition Tape Transfers) is 'legit' (its releases are properly licensed from the record companies) or not?

EDIT: ah, never mind,I see this has been mostly answered already (the answer seems to be 'not')

https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...ACD-(Jan-2017)&p=322768&viewfull=1#post322768

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That's a tough question, sully. They've been in business for approximately 10 years and although they're not able to replicate the original artwork on ANY of their hundreds of released titles, I find it odd that not one of the record companies have shut it down yet for infringement/piracy concerns.

Regarding quality: The fact that they're duplicated from either LPs or Open Reels would seem to indicate that they're operating independently of any royalty payments and yes, some of their releases are indigenous to them as they SEEM to be duplicated from sanctioned sources and IMO, on a good system, they're 'reasonable' facsimiles of the source material but then again, hardly indicative of the original master tapes.

One almost wishes that the big wig conglomerates would enlist their services to duplicate master tape source material as we know or should know that the record companies have NO intentions of releasing them on physical disc. IMO, some of them are true classic treasures and if this is all we have, then I'm IN.

I own about 50 of their earnest bootlegs [if that's the proper term] and IF the majors did release these titles on bona fide hi res physical disc, I would certainly PREFER the sanctioned release.

Ssully, I know I didn't answer your question but until Universal Music or SONY [which MOST of their recordings are sourced from] shuts down HDDT Tracks once and for all, I guess we'll never know.

The one caveat: They're utilizing TOP, TOP duplicating equipment and the sounds they elicit from these Open Reels sounds heads above any sound I ever experienced from 1970/80's era Open Reel tape Decks. And with the choice of DSD, DVD~A 192/24/DVD~A 96/24, etc. and some very magnificent BD~A discs, it's certainly somewhat better than the DVD~V DTS/DD 5.1 LOSSY 'masters' currently 'peddled' by the major conglomerates!

4-earredwonder said:

That's a tough question, sully. They've been in business for approximately 10 years and although they're not able to replicate the original artwork on ANY of their hundreds of released titles, I find it odd that not one of the record companies have shut it down yet for infringement/piracy concerns.

Regarding quality: The fact that they're duplicated from either LPs or Open Reels would seem to indicate that they're operating independently of any royalty payments and yes, some of their releases are indigenous to them as they SEEM to be duplicated from sanctioned sources and IMO, on a good system, they're 'reasonable' facsimiles of the source material but then again, hardly indicative of the original master tapes.

One almost wishes that the big wig conglomerates would enlist their services to duplicate master tape source material as we know or should know that the record companies have NO intentions of releasing them on physical disc. IMO, some of them are true classic treasures and if this is all we have, then I'm IN.

I own about 50 of their earnest bootlegs [if that's the proper term] and IF the majors did release these titles on bona fide hi res physical disc, I would certainly PREFER the sanctioned release.

Ssully, I know I didn't answer your question but until Universal Music or SONY [which MOST of their recordings are sourced from] shuts down HDDT Tracks once and for all, I guess we'll never know.

The one caveat: They're utilizing TOP, TOP duplicating equipment and the sounds they elicit from these Open Reels sounds heads above any sound I ever experienced from 1970/80's era Open Reel tape Decks. And with the choice of DSD, DVD~A 192/24/DVD~A 96/24, etc. and some very magnificent BD~A discs, it's certainly somewhat better than the DVD~V DTS/DD 5.1 LOSSY 'masters' currently 'peddled' by the major conglomerates!

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They're also employing tube pre-amplification, which to me, is not an example of TOP, TOP equipment. Tube gear inevitably introduces some measurable and potentially audible distortion -- some argue that that is the point of using it. They call it 'warmth'. I call it unnecessary.

I've purchased HDTT's 24/192 download of the 4.0 Ravel/Debussy set, which I have already from a different hobbyist who used different facilities, but was also sourced from a 4.0 RTR Q4. It will be interesting to compare them.

Better still would be to compare an HDTT's release with a version definitely sourced from master tapes.

4-earredwonder said:

That's a tough question, sully. They've been in business for approximately 10 years and although they're not able to replicate the original artwork on ANY of their hundreds of released titles, I find it odd that not one of the record companies have shut it down yet for infringement/piracy concerns.

Regarding quality: The fact that they're duplicated from either LPs or Open Reels would seem to indicate that they're operating independently of any royalty payments and yes, some of their releases are indigenous to them as they SEEM to be duplicated from sanctioned sources and IMO, on a good system, they're 'reasonable' facsimiles of the source material but then again, hardly indicative of the original master tapes.

One almost wishes that the big wig conglomerates would enlist their services to duplicate master tape source material as we know or should know that the record companies have NO intentions of releasing them on physical disc. IMO, some of them are true classic treasures and if this is all we have, then I'm IN.

I own about 50 of their earnest bootlegs [if that's the proper term] and IF the majors did release these titles on bona fide hi res physical disc, I would certainly PREFER the sanctioned release.

Ssully, I know I didn't answer your question but until Universal Music or SONY [which MOST of their recordings are sourced from] shuts down HDDT Tracks once and for all, I guess we'll never know.

The one caveat: They're utilizing TOP, TOP duplicating equipment and the sounds they elicit from these Open Reels sounds heads above any sound I ever experienced from 1970/80's era Open Reel tape Decks. And with the choice of DSD, DVD~A 192/24/DVD~A 96/24, etc. and some very magnificent BD~A discs, it's certainly somewhat better than the DVD~V DTS/DD 5.1 LOSSY 'masters' currently 'peddled' by the major conglomerates!

Click to expand...

HDTT isn't legit (as my linked to post says), but I think they've survived because they're operating in a particularly complicated thicket of law. In a nutshell, they're legal under US federal law, but they're not legal under the law of most US states. They removed the information from their website, but they were based in New Jersey and that's one of the states with fairly clear precedents that what they're doing gives rise to both civil and criminal liability. The relevant NJ criminal statute is here: ftp://www.njleg.state.nj.us/20042005/A3000/2513_I1.HTM - 48 out of 50 states have similar laws.

As a bit of history, in 1908 the US Supreme Court ruled in White-Smith v. Apollo that a piano roll is not protected by copyright. When Congress did a full revision of the copyright laws the following year they said that sound recordings - both piano rolls and rudimentary recordings - were not protected by copyright under federal law. However, over the decades Courts decided that sound recordings were not "published" under state law (it's a legal fiction, just roll with it), and thus were protected by common-law copyright under state law. Congress enacted federal protection for sound recordings effective February 15, 1972, but it only applied to sound recordings made on that day forward - anything older keeps state law protection. This is why HDTT has said it's okay to use pre-1972 sound recordings, but they're ignoring state-law protections. Probably the best-known case on the subject is the 2005 opinion of the highest court of New York in Capitol v. Naxos, where they held that Naxos releases of their own transfers from 78s of Yehudi Menhuin playing Bach could not be sold in New York, even though the recordings were out of copyright in the UK and Naxos had made their own transfer.

This is really only scratching the service of the legal issue, and it's not even touching the issue that even though federal law doesn't protect sound recordings made before 1972, it does protect musical compositions - which is why HDTT limits itself to classical works by long-dead composers (I believe?). Suffice to say that this is an area sufficiently complex that most lawyers simply avoid it, and I suspect HDTT hasn't been sued because of the complexity of the laws at issue.

By the way, the question is entirely different vis a vis Europe, where almost all of their quad transfers are likely infringing.

Hope that helps, and this isn't legal advice. If it were legal advice, it would be accompanied by a bill