Can't legally buy music on Linux...argh!!

Peyton · 2007-08-09 00:25:32

Well, I think you're confusing common law, which refers to a legal system (used by both the United States and the United Kingdom), with criminal law -- not very hard to do, since civil law has two meanings, which both serve as contrasts to the two aforementioned terms. So, I think we're just misunderstanding each other here and arguing different cases.

To clarify, then, no, I'm not trying to claim that violating the GPL is a criminal offense.

sula · 2007-08-16 22:49:54

hussam wrote:

In Lebanon, the law says that you limited by the license that comes with your product. Some audio cds might say you are entitled to make one backup copy for personal use in which case you are free to do so. But most audio cds do say that unauthorized reproduction, copying, renting, etc.. is not allowed unless you get permission from the producer/record company. The idea is to respect the license that the record company used when they released their products.
Personally, I don't find it fair that the US government can override the license that the producer of a product uses. Would you find it fair if the government said GPL is invalid?
If you find it unfair that a record company forces restrictive licenses, either try to have the government legally force them to change their licensing or simply abide by it.

I'm not living in US.I'm living in Poland. Goverment isn't overriding licenses - it legally forces companies to change them as you said.

I personally think that it is good thing that goverment can force companies in some special cases. License is a deal made between company and customer. You have to have some restrictions by law ,imagine that you are allowed to make any deal(in form of a license or any other) between everybody(person or company) for example imagine that you can legally sell your kidney on a free market?

Goverments made many laws and most people don't realise how many. All kinds of deals are restricted in some ways , labor law ,bank law ,traffic law. It is about why people are organising themself in countries - to make themself safe by putting standards ,restrictions and so on ,so they will not get ripped off or hurt.

I'm personally happy taht there are limit how music companies can restrict customers law in their licenses.

Ps. Sorry for my limited knowledge of english i hope i'm understandable.

Last edited by sula (2007-08-16 22:52:52)

FeatherMonkey · 2007-08-29 12:51:56

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2176569,00.asp It seems the Americans also think its contract law or certainly one off the licenses.

Looks like we're to see it tested to its full.

Last edited by FeatherMonkey (2007-08-29 12:53:26)

kagerato · 2007-09-12 02:29:44

FeatherMonkey, it's actually both.

Copyright law is established in the states by the U.S. Code, Title 17. See http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/ … 01_17.html . Title 17 provides for both civil and criminal penalties for copyright violations (see Chapter 5).

However, the GPL is a license that grants individuals the ability to bypass the owner/producer's copyright, as long as they abide by the terms of the license itself. This falls under contract law. The GPL has already proven itself to be a legally binding contract in the past, and the FSF works to ensure that remains the case.

As soon as you violate the terms of the GPL on a covered work, for example by distributing a program without source, you've broken the contract *[1]. Since agreement to the contract is the only thing which gives you redistribution rights, you're simultaneously violating copyright law and could be subject to civil or criminal penalties.

Contrast this situation with a public domain work, where the copyright is explicitly disavowed. You cannot face any penalty for distributing such works.

[1] We must exclude, of course, the original author or legitimate owner of the work. They have the authority to do nearly anything they please, including completely relicense the work or eliminate the copyright entirely.

FeatherMonkey · 2007-09-12 11:34:42

As far as I'm aware this is the first time GPL/OSS license has actually been tested in regards to whether its License/contract or copyright.

Not whether its a breach of copyright which is as the cases gone before, as far as I'm aware the above case will set a precedent. The first time the actual GPL/OSS license will be tested and proved as or not a contract. Remember if its a license it is better for OSS, where as if a contract its bad.

Not a nice precedent, I actually don't even begin to understand how it got to contract law. In my eyes the breach is pure copyright but then I'm no legal head changing authorship to another author certainly seems a copyright issue to me.

If this precedent is set then that means breach of GPL/OSS license may/will fall under contract law, meaning that injunctions won't happen but monetary value. So instead we'll have companies picking of bits they like from OSS and just paying. Certainly not how I'd like to see the GPL/OSS license enforced.

Last edited by FeatherMonkey (2007-09-12 13:19:29)

kagerato · 2007-09-13 01:06:37

FeatherMonkey wrote:

As far as I'm aware this is the first time GPL/OSS license has actually been tested in regards to whether its License/contract or copyright.

In the states, that may be so. I haven't found a particular case that explicitly declares what legal entity the GPL is. Worldwide, there have been several cases settled in favor of the GPL. http://gpl-violations.org/ and http://www.groklaw.net/ generally cover and describe them in decent depth.

Not whether its a breach of copyright which is as the cases gone before, as far as I'm aware the above case will set a precedent. The first time the actual GPL/OSS license will be tested and proved as or not a contract. Remember if its a license it is better for OSS, where as if a contract its bad.

I'm not a lawyer, so the precise differences between a license and a contract escape me.

Not a nice precedent, I actually don't even begin to understand how it got to contract law. In my eyes the breach is pure copyright but then I'm no legal head changing authorship to another author certainly seems a copyright issue to me.

The way I understand it, even if the GPL is a contract and not a license, copyright penalties for violations still apply.

If this precedent is set then that means breach of GPL/OSS license may/will fall under contract law, meaning that injunctions won't happen but monetary value. So instead we'll have companies picking of bits they like from OSS and just paying. Certainly not how I'd like to see the GPL/OSS license enforced.

Ultimately it comes down to money either way. You won't be seeing any prison terms for people violating the GPL at any point, nor companies being stripped of their corporate charter, nor denied corporate personhood.

The legal system in the US is a very odd beast.

FeatherMonkey · 2007-09-13 01:28:14

You won't find a case where its been declared a license or contract(AFAIK this is a precedent) and in my country there is nothing distinguishing between a license or a contract.

Some one earlier made the point that it fell under license law in America not me.

I agree but if you look at the examples you pointed me to some use cease and desist orders, the above ruling will make this not applicable or certainly a grey area.

The main differences between license and contract is the cease and desist versus a monetary pay out.(From what I can work out) Think about it if you intend to distribute it for free what kind of monetary value can you expect?

As for the legal system in America he who has the money has the power.

Last edited by FeatherMonkey (2007-09-13 01:30:36)

idjut · 2007-09-14 04:02:22

Download ogg and mp3s for free, buy vinyl.

ramoneur · 2008-01-31 08:15:49

i havent read the thread, but a site with alot of good electronica/dance etc. music is http://www.beatport.com . there is ~20 sec preview on the site of every song they got, its a nicely built website in flash, you should check it out.

phrakture · 2008-01-31 20:05:02

dolby wrote:

damn i shouldnt have posted this here. anyway since its really OT, i'll just limit myself to the following

Without going too far off the mark, I do want to add this: your personal feelings about music differ from other people's - I listen to music, but I barely care about much of it. I like streaming internet services because I don't actually get much value from the media. This is not a right or wrong way to feel about it, it is simply my opinion which differs from yours. By contrast, I'm sure we have differing opinions on visual media - I just spent $45 on a remastered DVD set of a movie from the 30s that is actually public domain right now and fully available on archive.org. I don't care if other people watch a digital version or buy the media, but I will purchase the media regardles.

11010010110 · 2008-02-05 12:37:42

I download complete sessions from homepages of DJs and sometimes stuff like OCremix and the like. use google to

I aid in http://downloading-music.org in finding them. Note : this site finds both legal and pirate stuff. I follow the link and look if it (the link / the site it points to) seems ok or not

About drm - IMO buying an ipod (or a mac - this was suggested too here lol) or installing windows in VM is not solution. I prefer gadgets / software that dont hate me even if they are less capable

My MP3 player is a simple mp3 player not capable of playing anything else. made by a chinese company i never saw before (and disappeared few weeks after i bought it). I really like it

idjut · 2008-02-15 12:05:19

ramoneur wrote:

i havent read the thread, but a site with alot of good electronica/dance etc. music is http://www.beatport.com . there is ~20 sec preview on the site of every song they got, its a nicely built website in flash, you should check it out.

They charge half price for the osunlade album compared to the vinyl! And no discount for several mp3s. Thats stealing.

mitchell · 2008-03-01 22:01:59

Amazon has a linux client:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/dmusic/help/amd.html

skottish · 2008-03-01 22:18:32

mitchell wrote:

Amazon has a linux client:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/dmusic/help/amd.html

It seems there is a source now. From their website:

amazon wrote:

What does DRM-free mean?
Digital Rights Management or "DRM" commonly refers to software that is designed to control or limit how a file can be played, copied, downloaded, shared, or accessed. DRM-free means that the MP3 files you purchase from Amazon.com do not contain any software that will restrict your use of the file.
Why are Music Downloads only available in MP3 format?
MP3 is the most widely compatible music file format and is supported by most media player applications, hand-held music devices, and some CD and DVD players. Our MP3 format also provides you with the freedom to transfer music you buy at the Amazon MP3 store to any device you'd like or copy it to a CD without restrictions of any kind.

iphitus · 2008-03-02 09:56:00

I like getting that retro CD thingy.

veek · 2008-03-02 17:16:23

I've been dropping in on this thread periodically. I checked out a lot of the suggestions people
made and discovered some new stuff.

I'm not sure how, but I managed to overlook Amazon's mp3 store till about 2 weeks ago.
So I've been buying albums from there. I didn't realize they already have a Linux client,
thanks for the link mitchell. I checked just a few days ago, and I read that a client was in
progress but not available yet. Maybe that was an old message, or it was just released after I checked.

Anyway, I guess that's a good source for me. Now, this is a pipe dream, but it would be great
if Amazon (or some other online store) offered files in FLAC or another lossless format.

iphitus wrote:

I like getting that retro CD thingy.

Yea...but I'm currently working in China so I can't drive over to the nearest Borders and
buy the latest CD.

Edit: Oops that links was from mitchell not skottish.

Last edited by veek (2008-03-02 17:31:38)

eljoeb · 2008-03-02 18:35:17

Has anyone gotten the amazon downloader to work in Arch? I tried taking the .deb and using deb2tar.gz but whenever I try to start it I get:

amazonmp3: error while loading shared libraries: libboost_date_time-gcc41-1_34_1.so.1.34.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

And I tried reinstalling boost but that got me nowhere...

eerok · 2008-03-02 20:33:47

Try a symlink to /usr/lib/libboost_date_time.so

eljoeb · 2008-03-02 21:33:02

symlink where? I tried to the /usr/applications where the downloader sits, but I'm not sure where to put it. I symlinked it in all the folders I copied stuff when pulling stuff out of the .deb. Maybe I should try the rpm.

eerok · 2008-03-02 22:52:28

What I meant was

# ln -s /usr/lib/libboost_date_time.so /usr/lib/libboost_date_time-gcc41-1_34_1.so.1.34.1

eljoeb · 2008-03-02 23:57:16

It's nice to know I'm having one of those moments... heh. Anyway, I did that, and then it wanted more libraries, which I kept symlinking, but eventually I hit this little winner:

amazonmp3: /usr/lib/libcurl.so.4: no version information available (required by amazonmp3)
amazonmp3: /usr/lib/libcrypto.so.0.9.8: no version information available (required by amazonmp3)
No protocol specified

Any idea?

eerok · 2008-03-03 03:18:51

Well, there's no libcurl.so.4 on Etch -- it's libcurl.so.3 ... but there is a libcrypto.so.0.9.8 ... of course these are all ancient compared to Arch.

All in all, this is a real PITA to get going, isnt it Maybe the easiest way around this would be to put Etch on VirtualBox or Qemu. Or try complaining to Amazon to see if they'll put up a regular tar.gz like anyone else would've in the first place ... nah, the virtual solution would at least stand a chance of working.

eljoeb · 2008-03-03 12:55:22

eerok wrote:

Well, there's no libcurl.so.4 on Etch -- it's libcurl.so.3 ... but there is a libcrypto.so.0.9.8 ... of course these are all ancient compared to Arch.
All in all, this is a real PITA to get going, isnt it Maybe the easiest way around this would be to put Etch on VirtualBox or Qemu. Or try complaining to Amazon to see if they'll put up a regular tar.gz like anyone else would've in the first place ... nah, the virtual solution would at least stand a chance of working.

I was inclined to agree until I tried out the Fedora 8 rpm... it worked fine. All I had to do was copy the files to the right location and it works perfectly!

veek · 2008-03-03 13:19:38

That's good news eljoeb, I'm gonna grab the rpm and give it a whirl as soon as I get the chance.

eerok · 2008-03-03 15:56:54

Yes, that's good to know. It's a bit surprising that the rpm is so dramatically different from the deb, though.

Arch Linux

#51 2007-08-09 00:25:32

Re: Can't legally buy music on Linux...argh!!

#52 2007-08-16 22:49:54

Re: Can't legally buy music on Linux...argh!!

#53 2007-08-29 12:51:56

Re: Can't legally buy music on Linux...argh!!

#54 2007-09-12 02:29:44

Re: Can't legally buy music on Linux...argh!!

#55 2007-09-12 11:34:42

Re: Can't legally buy music on Linux...argh!!

#56 2007-09-13 01:06:37

Re: Can't legally buy music on Linux...argh!!

#57 2007-09-13 01:28:14

Re: Can't legally buy music on Linux...argh!!

#58 2007-09-14 04:02:22

Re: Can't legally buy music on Linux...argh!!

#59 2008-01-31 08:15:49

Re: Can't legally buy music on Linux...argh!!

#60 2008-01-31 20:05:02

Re: Can't legally buy music on Linux...argh!!

#61 2008-02-05 12:37:42

Re: Can't legally buy music on Linux...argh!!

#62 2008-02-15 12:05:19

Re: Can't legally buy music on Linux...argh!!

#63 2008-03-01 22:01:59

Re: Can't legally buy music on Linux...argh!!

#64 2008-03-01 22:18:32

Re: Can't legally buy music on Linux...argh!!

#65 2008-03-02 09:56:00

Re: Can't legally buy music on Linux...argh!!

#66 2008-03-02 17:16:23

Re: Can't legally buy music on Linux...argh!!

#67 2008-03-02 18:35:17

Re: Can't legally buy music on Linux...argh!!

#68 2008-03-02 20:33:47

Re: Can't legally buy music on Linux...argh!!

#69 2008-03-02 21:33:02

Re: Can't legally buy music on Linux...argh!!

#70 2008-03-02 22:52:28

Re: Can't legally buy music on Linux...argh!!

#71 2008-03-02 23:57:16

Re: Can't legally buy music on Linux...argh!!

#72 2008-03-03 03:18:51

Re: Can't legally buy music on Linux...argh!!

#73 2008-03-03 12:55:22

Re: Can't legally buy music on Linux...argh!!

#74 2008-03-03 13:19:38

Re: Can't legally buy music on Linux...argh!!

#75 2008-03-03 15:56:54

Re: Can't legally buy music on Linux...argh!!

Board footer