Online Music Downloads ... Part II

As I've mentioned in previous posts ...

I occasionally will use Google to find online music from my favorite bands and/or bands I'm not familiar with.

The legal ramifications of such activity are not really a concern to me as the files I randomly find in public folders and blogs are just as likely to be public/free domain files as they are copyrighted. The exact nature of such, regarding such questions, is really not known to me and so I count it as good fortune to find any of such files.

It's a sporadic and infrequent activity on my part and it generally leads to my purchasing an official CD of the same artists material and so I don't really concern myself too much with the legality of such behaviors (even considering the fact that I'm the subject of a rather banal and corrupt local investigation).


Musicindexof.blogspot.com

Which brings me to my next point ...

Just two days ago ... I found a handful of songs from Rage Against the Machine on the above titled/mentioned blogspot.com blog.

I downloaded some of them as they were in .FLAC format and seemed to be fairly decent quality. This download was in large part because I have been wanting to purchase one or two hard copy Rage CD's in the near future from my local record shop and I figured this would be a great way to figure out exactly which CD's I will ultimately purchase.

Anyway ...

So today ...

Wanting to see what else the auther of musicindexof.blogspot might have available for download ... I revisited the site, only to find that it had been removed from public access.

Huh???

What does this tell me?

That maybe those who have been lusting after the possibility of bringing me in on some (any, really) sort of internet use related charge are growing even more desperate than I could have imagined and are planning to possibly "call me out" on charges related to illegal downloading of music ...

That maybe they notified said owner of musicindexof.blogspot of such intentions and then he/she were required to take their blog offline ...

Or maybe "They" notified Google and google shut the guy down ...

I really don't know to tell you the truth.

It also could have just been a random thing.


Legality of Music Downloads

Whether the Rage Against the Machine tracks I downloaded equaled a technically illegal action on my part or not is any one's guess.

As far as I know ... such randomly found and downloaded tracks are just as well covered by the Fair Use Act of 1976 as they are covered by any of the more prosecutorial laws of our land.

It's a user making tracks available for review/education purposes, after all ...

I mean, such downloads are what will influence me to purchase one or both of those same CD's from my local record shop this weekend ... so it's anybodies guess, really.

It's also not unlike finding a used CD in the trash can as far as I'm concerned (and maybe the law as well, when speaking of, strictly, downloading of such content).

Those academic musings stated ...

The situation for the person responsible for publishing such content ... that is ... making it available for direct download by others ... is much more precarious, I'd think.

For such persons actively publishing such content ... then here, maybe the prosecutorial options becomes a bit more arguble.

:-)

Anyway ...

As mentioned above ...

My actions in so far as randomly searching public directories and repositories, seeking this music or that as demo downloads ... is very slim at best.

The general mode of operation, as stated before, is for an ISP to issue multiple warnings that such activity should cease as opposed to booted feds/cops busting in one's door.

;-)

Anyway ...

I hardly ever find myself partaking in such activity and I only bring such topics up here and now as it seems a bit coincidental that such a random site that I recently downloaded files from was shut down just a day or two later.


My General Mode of Music Download

My general mode of downloading music is most often from pay-sites like www.hdtracks.com or www.mp3fiesta.com.

I've spent thousands on hard copy CD's and online downloads and I'll continue to do such.

But it should also be stated here that many of the artists that I purchase music from were first discovered by random searches of online blogs and public FTP directories.

As a creator of music/songwriter myself ... one who has published nearly 200 songs online for free download ... I consider such activity indispensable towards ultimately paying for the music I enjoy.

...

So as I continue to spend boat loads of cash on downloaded and hard copy music, I will nonetheless also and occasionally explore google directories for online music to demo.

Just wanted to post a little heads up as I thought it rather unusual that that guys blog was shut down so soon after I downloaded those files ...


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this post is intended to be supplemental to the facts made public in my main website, http://www.jbhfile.com/; it probably will not make much sense to you if you have not already made yourself aware of the legal and personal efforts discussed in that site. please see http://www.jbhfile.com/ for a necessary introduction into why this blog exists. or, if you just like reading weird stuff, then don't. and, enjoy.
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jbh.

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