Are Mp3's Illegal?
 

Simple question-complex answer. Please help.

There is nothing illegal about the mp3 file format. Sharing copyrighted music (or any material) is illegal no matter what format it is in.

Only if you get caught. ;)

Seriously, I think it's ok to turn your CDs into MP3s if you are the only one who is going to listen to them. Trading them is a no-no.

It's not complex at all, actually: MP3 is just an audio compression algorithm. It is used to compress raw audio data, therefore reducing the amount of storage space required. There is nothing illegal about it!

You might be thinking of the act of redistributing copyrighted commercial material, which <i>is</i> prohibited by international copyright laws (no matter how silly they may be.)

For example, if you download a copy of the latest Radiohead album without paying for it, you are in fact breaking those laws. Unless, of course, the owner of that album -- usually the record company -- grants you permission to do so.

However, the format used to compress the audio data has nothing to do with the legality of your actions. It doesn't matter whether the data is in raw form, or compressed using <i>MP3, WMA, RA, APE, ZIP, RAR, ARC, ACE, ARJ, LZH, GZIP, BZIP, BZIP2</i> and so on... ;)

Cheers.

Or .avi ;)

Well, I was talking about ways to compress <i>audio</i>... ;)

AVI = Audio <b>Video</b> Interleave. Besides, the audio track embedded in AVI's is usually either in WMA or MP3 format.

they are a perfectly legal way to back up your cd's

I understand the illegality of sharing MP3s, but why do KaZaA and Morpheus still allow it?

Actually the mp3 format IS patented and you're technically required to pay royalties to them.

Oddly enough, some legislators are trying to make even that activity illegal.

I think the companies who make the software that encodes mp3 pay these royalties for whatever codecs the software uses. So if you buy one of these software packages, you are paying for use of the mp3 codecs and you're not required to pay anything for each song you encode or play.

Not quite... Although the original compression algorithm was created and patented by a German company, <a href="http://www.iis.fhg.de/amm/">Fraunhoffer IIS</a>, it has been adopted by the <a href="http://mpeg.telecomitalialab.com">MPEG</a> group as the ISO/IEC standard <a href="http://mpeg.telecomitalialab.com/standards/mpeg-1/mpeg-1.htm">MPEG-1 Layer 3 format</a>. Neither the end users nor the software developers need to pay any fees to use the MPEG format and its audio layers...

Developers are only required to pay licensing fees if their software is going to incorporate a specific, commercial codec. For example, if they wish to use the Fraunhoffer codec -- generally considered the best MP3 algorithm -- they have to pay licensing fees to Fraunhoffer & Thomson Multimedia. To see their (outrageous) rates go here: http://mp3licensing.com

But there are plenty of other MP3 codecs out there; some of them are even free. So developers can use them in their MP3 decoder and/or encoder without having to pay any licensing fees.

For more information about the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) and their standards, please visit the <a href="http://mpeg.telecomitalialab.com/">official web site</a>. This is the same group responsible for the MPEG-2 format used in DVDs and Digital TV, by the way. ;) It was founded by <a href="http://leonardo.telecomitalialab.com/">Leonardo Chiariglione</a> of <a href="http://www.telecomitalialab.com/">Telecom Italia Lab</a>, and is based in Torino, Italy.

Cheers.

Are Mp3's Illegal?

I just downloaded some, they seem law-abiding to me. :D