Legal Resources

This section contains some useful Web sites to further your knowledge of legal issues regarding online audio. These issues surrounding the online transfer and "fair use" of music have not yet been fully codified. One of the side benefits to the Internet's anarchic way of working is that you'll see many con-flicting viewpoints. Nonetheless, the U.S. Copyright Office gets the last word, and new laws are hashed out on an ongoing basis.

Web Sites About Online Music Use

Following are a handful of worthy Web sites to start you on your never-ending journey toward understanding the practically incomprehensible world where the wishful orderliness of copyright law and the sentient chaos of the Internet warily cohabitate:

• United States Copyright Office (The Library of Congress) http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright. "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" (U.S. Constitution; Article 1, Section 8). The final word.

• Music Law Offices of Michael P. McCready www.music-law.com. This site contains a practical (independent) series of explanations, definitions, and how-to's.

• ASCAP Music and Money www.ascap.com/musicbiz/money-intro.html. A readable overview (in their own words) on how the whole music publishing system operates can be found here.

• Big Myths about Copyright Explained www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html. This site is a somewhat passionate Q&A about online music use. Relevant subjects are covered.

• Final Joint Version of H.R. 2281 www.eff.org/ip/DMCA/hr2281_dmca_law_19981020_pl105-304.html. The full text of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) can be found here. The DMCA was the first major U.S. governmental foray into online copyright protection.

Industry Trade Groups

Here you'll find the official online presences for organizations that represent key building blocks of the music industry edifice. It's best to interpret the information on these sites with a grain of salt. They don't really know what's happening with the current climate of Internet audio any more than anyone else, although they might try to convince you otherwise. Should you be a dues-paying member of any of these organizations, make sure you make your opinions known to them. They are ostensibly representing you in their expensive lobbying efforts.

• The Recording Industry Association of America www.riaa.org.The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is the trade group that represents the major label music business.

• The National Music Publishers Association www.nmpa.org. The National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) is a clearinghouse for acquiring the permissions (in the form of "licenses") to use other people's music online (and everywhere else).

• The Harry Fox Agency www.nmpa.org/hfa.html. The Harry Fox Agency (HFA) Web page is useful for obtaining licensing. The HFA pages are housed at the National Music Publishers Association.

• National Association of Broadcasters www.nab.org. The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) is a full-service trade association that promotes and protects the interests of corporate-owned radio and television broadcasters in the United States and around the world. Their site contains a lot of information separate from the Internet, so narrow things down by using their search feature on the word "Internet."

Collection Societies

The principal purpose of collection societies is to make sure that users who play copyrighted music in public areas, such as the Internet, pay fees. These organizations offer a large online presence, and some have useful explanations about current copyright law.

• The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) www.ascap.com. The largest music-publishing collection society. Many big-name recording stars are members.

• Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) www.bmi.com. The second largest music-publishing collection society. Most of the rest of the big-name stars are members.

• SESAC (formerly The Society of European Stage Authors and Composers) www.sesac.com. A collection society that is noteworthy for its recent decision to actually have a Web site.

• Bug Music www.bugmusic.com. A scrappy independent with a long history of egalitarian royalty distribution.

MP3 Licensing and LAME

Although MP3 is an ISO standard, both Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and Thomson multimedia own patent rights surrounding the MP3 technology. These rights enable them to collect licensing fees (see www.mp3licensing.com) from anyone who makes use of that technology.

The majority of MP3 players and encoders are packaged with the Fraunhofer or LAME encoding engine, paying the appropriate licensing for each copy distributed. However, there is an interesting legal loophole that open source advocates have taken with the LAME software.

LAME is officially distributed in source-code form only, and therefore is not subject to license fees that are attached to the actual use of the technology. Individuals are free to download and compile the source themselves, but then likely will owe MP3 license fees for any use of the technology. Other organizations provide pre-compiled versions of the LAME software on their site, with the caveat that you need to research the legal ramifications yourself.

The www.mp3licensing.com Web site states that they don't issue licenses for individual users, so if you choose to use LAME, we recommend that you contact them inquiring what the appropriate process is to pay for your single private use, and offer to send in money. A company that sells MP3 software can expect to pay between $2.50 and $5.00 for each unit, so if they do decide to grant individual licenses, the cost should be affordable.

Although Fraunhofer and Thomson multimedia are unlikely to track you down and sue you if you use an unlicensed version of LAME (or any other MP3) encoding engine, you need to be aware that you would likely be breaking the law.

Additional information is available from:

• www.mp3dev.org This site is the official Web site for the LAME Project. In particular, www.mp3dev.org/mp3/links.html#patents and the end of www.mp3dev.org/mp3/tech-FAQ.txt contain information pertaining to the patent rights.

• www.win32lame.com This site allows you to download pre-compiled versions of the LAME encoding engine.

• www.mp3licensing.com MP3 and MP3PRO patent and software licensing information.