Respect Intellectual Property

Is Recording Streaming Audio Allowable?

We think that recording streaming audio for the later personal enjoyment or edification of yourself and members of your immediate household is allowable, whether as a "fair use" under the United States Copyright Act or the equivalent in the territory of the rights holder or you, or otherwise, and is the equivalent of using GTPlayer, or an old fashioned audio recordes. And there are many audios that are in the public domain (meaning, at least in the United States, there is no copyright or all copyright has fully and irrevocably expired), or where the copyright holders are okay with you saving or recording these audio for your later personal enjoyment or information. Some copyright holders are even okay with you making more copies of those audios or other works for the purpose of distributing them (or making them available) to others, without charging for them or otherwise financially benefitting, but this may be a pretty complex area of the law, and it isn't always crystal clear what a particular copyright holder may be okay with, and what the law is or may be, so we urge caution and unless you are certain about who the rights holder are and what they may be okay with please do not distribute or make them available to others. Sometimes a copyright holder will actually inform you that you can re-use or re-distribute their audios or other works, in whole, or in part, including by notifying the world at large that a particular Creative Commons type license [1] is applicable to a audio. Here is where Creative Commons lists organizations and projects powered with Creative Commons licenses: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Content_Directories.

The Internet Archive has a large collection of educational and entertainment audios that are available either because they are in the public domain or have some sort of some, but not all rights, reserved Creative Commons type license: http://archive.org/index.php. Under C-SPAN's copyright policy a license is generally not required to post a recording of C-SPAN's audios coverage of federal government events online for non-commercial purposes so long as C-SPAN is attributed as the source of the audios (http://www.c-span.org/about/copyrightsAndLicensing/). YouTube® allows uploaders of audios to indicate that certain audios can be edited, re-used, or re-distributed, in whole or in part (see, http://www.youtube.com/t/creative_commons).

We suggest that for those audios where you are not sure if they are in the public domain, or where you are not sure that the copyright holder would be okay with you making more copies of those audios or other works for a purpose of distributing them (or making them available) to others, or doing something else typically within the exclusive rights of the copyright holder, without charging for them, that you not place those audios or other works in any folders where you might make the content of such folder(s) available to others, whether on a VPN (virtual private network) or through any P2P (peer-to-peer) file search and sharing networks. Also, although some agreements (the "terms" or "EULA" [End User License Agreement]) with various streaming audio websites might say that you shouldn't download, copy, convert or record audios that stream, we think similar “fair use” type reasoning applies to recording for your own later personal enjoyment notwithstanding what the terms or EULA might say, and, therefore, we don't think those parts of the website agreements are enforceable. But we can’t be sure, and we aren’t encouraging you to violate or breach those agreements. We also think that it is fair, in most instances, for you to convert audio files to audio files, again for your later personal enjoyment. This may be particularly true if you are visually impaired. As a matter of fact, in many instances the audio you are streaming is actually being recorded and saved already. When you listen a audio in flash from a website, the audio is downloaded into your computer, in the folder "Temporary Internet Files" of your browser. The Audio Downloader program does pretty much the same thing, allowing you to select the destination folder. This means that the file is saved on your computer while you listen the audio and there remains until you do delete it. Some, but obviously not all copyright holders may feel that this is not always fair or allowable. For example, some "major label" music recording or music publishing companies, and performers and songwriters may believe that with regard to music audios it is not fair for users to either record, or continue to keep the audio streams that have already been recorded to your computer, or to just keep the audio portions of the audios, especially if a user can continue to play those files after they have been removed from the streaming website, or they think that you should have bought what they were allowing to be streamed for free if you were going to do anything other than watch or listen from the streaming website. That's kind of like saying you can't make a recording of what is playing on a radio station, or music audios playing on you television, whether delivered over the air, by cable, by satellite, by telephone line, or other communications carrier or delivery mechanism. We, and many many others from all walks of life, from economists, to scholars, to industry insiders, to average citizens and consumers, to some in government, feel that, all things considered, it is okay for you to record, convert to audio, and save for later personal use. But we recognize that some believe otherwise, and you should know this too. And so while we think that we are right, and it is within your rights to record even music audios for later personal use, it is your choice to make an informed decision. And we will repeat because we think it is important, that we do not condone copyright infringement, we don't think that you should attempt to sell or make money from streamed audio files (unless the rights holder says you can, or perhaps you are using parts in something like news reporting, or for scholarly or educational purposes, or the like . . . but the exceptions to the "no profiting" rules are even more stringent and complex than the average person will want to try to figure out). And you should be very very careful about making some such content available for distribution, even if not for profit. Also, we encourage you to support authors and artists whose works you like. But ultimately, unfortunately, we can't give you advice about any of this. You might want to consult with an experienced and good lawyer who knows about these issues, or ask some public interest groups to publish information on these topics and help you stand up for your rights. Also, this was written with the laws of the United States principally in mind, as we understand them, though may of the same principles apply elsewhere. If you are outside of the United States you might want to look into what the laws are of the territory where you are, the Electronic Frontier Foundation provides a database of copyright laws around the world at http://copyright-watch.org. In European Union countries, the Commission website has some helpful information and links: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/eyouguide/navigation/index_en.html.

WIPO has a list of Intellectual Property and Copyright Offices internationally, you can find the one applicable for your country here: http://www.wipo.int/directory/en/urls.jsp

See http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.pdf for more information about U.S. copyright law.

For more information on US copyright law and fair use, check out the following materials.

• http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
• http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/
• http://www.copyrightwebsite.com/Info/Law/FairUse.aspx
• http://chillingeffects.org/fairuse/

The School of Communication American University Center for Social Media has a Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Scholarly Research in Communication.

We respect intellectual property rights and expect the users of Audio Downloader to do the same. Any use of Audio Downloader that violates an intellectual property right of a third party is not allowed.

Other Stuff our lawyers like us to say:

All defenses, remedies, rights, claims, etc., reserved without waiver or prejudice. No admissions, waivers, etc. made, including by silence or only partial response. No promises made or implied. Emails, other Posts, and written and oral discussions do not make or modify contracts and are not digital or electronic signatures or writings.

[October 02, 2018]