Thanks, Amith. Hearing from horse's mouth is indeed enlightening and leaves no sphere for doubt or confusion.
So, that clarifies that sharing of ripped BGMs is illegal. But is it so unethical? You wrote: > The BGMs are the part of a movie, and are intended to be > heard/seen/enjoyed as a part of movie, and not otherwise. That is too stringent and unethical. Why do we have to see a 2:30 hours movie to enjoy a total of 5-10 minute BGMs? Can anyone afford to spend time seeing the entire movie to enjoy BGMs? And even DVDs don't have any menu for BGMs and we would have to locate them ourselves put our own bookmarks to reach them, so on. Hardly anyone has the skill and inclination to do that. That brings us to a concept: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire > laissez-faire can refer to "hands off, let alone, or let pass or let it be " > attitude for matters outside of economics. > > Laissez-faire (pronunciation: French, [lɛsefɛʁ] (help·info); English, > ˌleɪseɪˈfɛər (help·info)) is a French phrase literally meaning Let do (“allow > to do” Laissez-faire is loosely translated as "Let individual be left alone". Government agencies are not supposed to interfere whatever an individual is doing in the privacy of home. That concept is well prevalent and I have come across police, lawyers and other person, who have conceded that that concept is what all agencies seem to follow nowadays, though the motivation for them is not any philosophical belief but just the plain, vanilla "shortage of manpower and time" to follow up everything. So, even working police guys have told me that if an individual is ripping cds/ dvds/ videos/ music/ whatever, even copying them in full and keeping for himself to view, NO CASE IS PUT AGAINST HIM, as long as he is not selling them, as long as he is not telling that it is his own creation. So, though it is illegal, by the words of law, to rip and share these things, when we are not charging money and when we are not claiming them to be our own creation, no police or no court in India is going to put behind bars, of course, unless they are hellbent on trapping us on any excuse. For that matter, did you ever got a novel to read for hire? Did you ever buy a novel and sold it after reading? Well, I think that is all illegal. (Hope someone clarifies). But that happens because that is surely unethical and impractical as everyone can't buy novels at huge prices and there is no point in keeping a novel for life after reading. Of course, if the copy you got is pirated itself (somebody else typing/ scanning it and reprinting it), that is rightly offense. The same line of thought can be followed about music also. One thing is sure. PUBLIC SHARING OF SUCH THINGS WOULD STILL BE CONSIDERED A GRAVE LEGAL OFFENSE. So, having thought about it, I now concede that this list should not share such things so openly and so publicly. The solution: Share them in private. Members can request for bgms, cds, dvds, videos, mp3s here in list. There is no offense in asking. And then, the learned members having skills to extract bgms can send those bgms and whatever to them by direct post, bypassing this list. The first and foremost things is "buy at least one copy of audio cd" Once you have that, even right holder companies would be obliged to you and they know that they can't make you buy 100 versions of the same thing. Thanks. -- Rawat On 10/31/2008 7:24 AM India Time, _Amith Chandhran_ wrote: > In my humble opinion, the copyright laws about the recorded work on any > recordable media are very well defined in the legal system. > > Copyright recognizes the exclusive right of a creator to gain the > commercial advantage out of his own creation. It is essential to > encourage the artists and composers to invest their creative inputs in > the original works.* > > *Copyright is a bundle of rights which deals with works like: Literary, > Dramatic, Musical, Artistic, Cinematographic films, and Sound > recordings. A musical work means any combination of (instrumental or > vocal) melody, harmony, singing, or either of them, printed, reduced to > writing or otherwise graphically produced or reproduced. > > Where the musical work is comprising a part of the cinematographic film, > the assignees of the copyrights for the cinematographic film will by > default own copyrights in the musical work. Please refer to my earlier > email on the copyright issues here: > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/arrahmanfans/message/88353 > > The BGMs with which we are concerned as of now, are the part of a movie, > and are intended to be heard/seen/enjoyed as a part of movie, and not > otherwise. Even if we extract them for our own pleasure, in any form > (voiceless, with voice / with or without musical instruments) the > copyrights will still remain with the original assignee. Since copyright > is a bundle of rights, the assignee who has the copyrights for the > movie, will essentially own the copyrights in the BGMs as well. > (/Remember: "All rights of the DVD are owned by the producer"/) And > extracting BGMs will violate the copyright laws. > > * * > Where both a CD and a DVD are copyrighted, the copyright laws will be > applicable to all the work that they contain. > > And unfortunately, the contention > 'we-are-innocent-because-we-are-die-hard-fans-of-Mr.Rahman' is not going > to sustain in any courts in this world. And I am not being sarcastic > here, its the fact. > > Thanks, > > - > > > > On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 10:42 AM, kaissiom <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote: > > Dear Aravind, > > Now you feel the dilemma I have been facing for at least a year or > two... ever since I heard my BGM on Radio. I have numerous BGMs and > other High Quality rips from DVDs that I can't share :( > > The fact is... we trust our brothers and sisters on this group here. > We are all here for the same purpose... to share and celebrate Rahman. > And it is with this spirit that we share these rare and generally > unavailable bits and pieces. But once we share something in the > public space like this group, whatever we share becomes available to > the public, who doesn't necessarily have to be a true, devoted, > dedicated Rahman fan. > > You can not imagine the pain I felt when I heard my BGM on the Radio. > And I knew it was my BGM because it was edited.. I had edited it. I > felt like I had somehow betrayed Rahman... his hard work. That's when > I made the conscious decision to stop sharing BGMs.. it was right > after RDB bgms. > > Anyhow... I would definitely like to point out one major thing... > namely the difference between a)BGMs and b)Vocals from DVD > > I'm not aware of the copyright laws about the soundtrack on DVDs, but > it would be great if someone(Amith Chandran?) could shed some light on > that. But please notice the difference between the above mentioned > musical bits from DVD: > > a)BGM (Background Music) bits: > 1. Available commercially: NO.. unless released as a soundtrack like > some of the tracks in BOSE. > 2. Rights owned by: Producer/Composer, don't know? > 3. Violations of copyright laws: Maybe, don't know? > > b)Vocals (extracted from DVD): > 1. Available commercially: YES.. in the form of original CD. We are > extracting the music(vocals) from the DVD, but the same exact music is > available in the commercial form in original CD. Commercial here > implies money can be made from it. And technically it shouldn't > matter if you extract vocals from a CD or a DVD... because it's the > same song and the same vocals. Therefore, you are tampering with a > commercially available product.. which definitely implies violation of > copyright laws. > 2. Rights owned by: same right-holders as the original CD > 3. Violated of copyright: Definitely YES. > > Therefore, to conclude, we must note the obvious difference between > just a BGM(not commercially available) vs. Vocals(Commercially > available in form of CD). > > The copyright laws regarding BGMs are not very clear and may not be > very well defined in the legal system.. it may be something like... > "All rights of the DVD are owned by the producer"? But we can still > argue that BGMs are by themselves not available to the public in > commercial form. If there is demand for it then maybe these > producers/composers should start making BGMs commercially available... > that way we don't have to go through the process of ripping and > sharing these BGMS. It could be a market they are overlooking and > while they do something about it, we are filling up the void for the > die-hard fans and that too for "free". The "free" part is a big deal > because nobody is making money from these BGMs and that is what it > boils down to.. how much money did the copyright holders lose? > > On the other hand, copyright laws of Audio CD are very well defined. > Either the Record Company owns it(most of the times) or the producer > owns it or the composer owns it or they own it partially( Rahman is > working on it). > I believe full length vocals of any song should not be shared..for the > very same reason we do not share full length audio songs from Rahman's > CDs. > > Rahman is an excellent corporate citizen and he is our role model. We > should learn from him and follow him in his ideals as true fans. We > as a group and as true Rahman fans are against piracy and plagiarism. > Not just Rahman's... please buy original CDs and DVDs of all the > Artists you like! > > Make Rahman Proud, > Wasim. > > > > --- In [email protected] > <mailto:arrahmanfans%40yahoogroups.com>, Aravind AM <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > > > Hi all, > > > > I have extracted voice only tracks of songs in Taal and Dil-Se... > But, now I'm having second thoughts on uploading it to the group. > > > > After seeing this series of mails on whether or not sharing this > mail, I'm now thoroughly confused. On reading kaissiom's mail, I > > could truly empathise with his argument. Whatever he has mentioned in > his mail makes a lot of sense, and he is totally justified! > > > > Now, I'm torn between the two - joy of sharing and > > ethics/copyright issues. > > > > Gopal and Vijay, It would be great if you could give your views on > the same!! > > > > > > Aravind
