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By that same logic, is converting files from m4a to mp3 illegal?
by debacle 14y ago
By that same logic, is converting files from m4a to mp3 illegal?
- tzs 14y agoNo, M4A to MP3 should be fine in most cases, because those formats are usually used for musical recordings. Space shifting of musical recordings by consumers for non-commercial purposes is allowed by the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, so there is no need to turn to fair use to justify it.
- debacle 14y agoSo m4a to mp3 is fine, but avi to mpeg4 is illegal?
- bunderbunder 14y agoI don't know that there's been a court decision covering that specific case, so it might still be in a legal gray area. To me the decision in the Betamax case suggests that it would be legal. Others say the precedent doesn't apply because the Betamax case was looking at time-shifting, and space-shifting is different. However, in any case avi to mpeg4 is not equivalent to DVD ripping from a legal standpoint. Because of the DMCA, US law makes a distinction between media that is encrypted for copyright protection purposes and media that is not encrypted. So since DVDs are CSS encrypted and AVIs aren't, the two are covered by somewhat different sets of law.
- ajross 14y agoNo, I don't think the case at hand says anything about that. What happened here is that the Copyright Office was asked specifically about DVD/BluRay ripping, and said "no". But that's all they said. The case of music ripping has some precendent, but not here. Obviously an unprotected file has no "means to effectively control access", so copying it should be legal under the DMCA (it's the circumvention that's illegal, not the copying per se). But m4a files are usually DRM'd, so my guess would be that unless a separate determination is made it's still not kosher.
- aplusbi 14y agoNo, copying a file from one device to another is illegal (space shifting) not changing the format (media shifting).
- jlgreco 14y agoSo if I rip a DVD to another DVD, but don't use CSS on the second, is that legal?
- taylodl 14y agoApparently. Mind you, none of this has been tried in court AFAIK.
- jcromartie 14y agoNot if it removes DRM.
- djrogers 14y agoNo, as m4a files are not protected by any copy protection mechanisms, which is the factor in play here. Did you by any chance mean the obsolete .m4p/Fairplay files that Apple abandoned several years back?