Copyright question

1) You don’t buy the intellectual property (IP). The ONLY person who can decide how to distribute/protect the IP is the copyright holder.

2) As the copyright holder is the only one that can decide (see 1)), he/she is the only one that can decide to give their work away for free/demo purposes. There is no such thing as fair use. The use of the IP is limited to personal or small family circle use. Wanna play it in public spaces or as a DJ? Most countries demand extra payment for that.

3) Copyright does not stop at the threshold of heaven (or hell). It simply goes to whoever gets the inheritance.

4) There are evergreens. This only means you don’t need the permission of the original IP holder to perform their music (cover it). However, if an artist covers music like that, the new work CAN again be copyrighted. So you would be able to share the ORIGINAL version without problems, not the covers.

Having had many discussions on the subject with a Dutch (music) IP lawyer, I am pretty confident about 1) through 3). The only uncertainty I have is about the free sharing of evergreens.

As for public domain, this is only valid when -again- the copyright holder specifically puts it there. Say something like offering a free download on SoundCloud.

As a whole I’d say this guys behavior is at the very least unethical (you are giving away something that belongs to someone else) and for the most part illegal. Not making any money off of it is not a relevant issue here. If I steal your phone and give it away for free, it’s still illegal to steal it in the first place.

Here’s my knowledge of copyright law.

THat 50 year protection you speak of is correct, it is the bare minimum afforded to works by the Berne Convention and is intended to allow the descendants of the copyright holder to benefit from the work. However, at the end of that period, it becomes freely available in the public domain.

Just because something is made available publicly does NOT give another person the right to distribute it. It still belongs to the copyright holder.

I’m not sure where they’ve got this filing for copyright nonsense from. Copyright is a special form of IP that arises literally upon creation – it’s also governed to a bare minimum standard intenationally (Berne and TRIPS).

Honestly copyright is fairly uniform internationally and there’s no such thing as not filing for copyright – it arises automatically as stated. It is the copyright holder’s right to decide whether other people can use it – if there has been implicit allowance then i am unsure of what the situation is here.

For your first point you are correct, he has bought that vinyl and that allows him to have personal use. It does not allow him to copy and redistribute it. Just imagine it if the case was a book. You bought Harry Potter for example. You own that copy, but you have no right to repackage it and distribute it yourself do you?

Hope this helps. (FYI I’ve studied international and UK copyright law at degree level)

Having DJed in most places around the world I can say this is illegal in all of them, except maybe Cuba 😛
I never DJed in North Korea though hehe to much risk to get shot if you play a wrong song hrhr