iTunes copy policies

[indifference]

I am having trouble figureing out what iTunes copy policies are. If i am making mix Cd's for friends, is that OK?

[cluthz]

Its not iTunes which sets the copy policies.
The copy policeis are set by your government or international rules.
Music that is copy protected is probihibited to sell,
but several contries has law that you can give a copy away for free to you family/household or friends.

[jdechko]

The magic number is 3.

You are allowed by the iTMS usage agreement to burn any song from the iTMS up to 3 times. That means that you can burn a single playlist with a song 3 times or you can burn 3 different playlists with a song one time each. You are allowed to authorize up to 3 different computers to play your downloaded tunes but I believe it is only 1 portable device you are allowed to have the song on.

Hope this helps.

Jonathan

[indifference]

why have i not heard about any announcement about this, or anything on apple's website? 3 times seems hardly any to me

[yellow]

The magic number is 3.

Actually, the magic number is 5.

I don't beleive it's legal for you to copy songs to a CD for your friend, not that that stops anyone. Think of it this way, if you buy the CD in a store and copy the CD and distribute them to your friends, it's illegal. Same thing applies to individuals songs on a CD "mix". Unless you get written permissions from the artist and record label, it's not legal. OR, if the artist is someone who encourages free distribution of live material, like Phish and the Grateful Dead, then you have nothing to worry about.

[Elan0204]

You can have a song purchased from the iTunes Music Store authorized on up to 5 computers, you can burn it an unlimited number of times (but only 7 times in an identical playlist, and you can put the song on an unlimited number of portable music players (of course the only choice right now is the iPod). All in all, I'd say that is a very liberal policy.

The iTunes Music Store uses FairPlay, Apple's digital rights management system that's designed to be fair to the artist, to the record companies and to you. In a nutshell, your FairPlay agreement entitles you to play your music on up to five computers (and enjoy unlimited synching with iPods), allows unlimited burning for individual songs and lets you burn playlists up to 7 times each.

[jdechko]

I stand corrected.

[SilentPanda]

The magic number is 3.

You are allowed by the iTMS usage agreement to burn any song from the iTMS up to 3 times. That means that you can burn a single playlist with a song 3 times or you can burn 3 different playlists with a song one time each. You are allowed to authorize up to 3 different computers to play your downloaded tunes but I believe it is only 1 portable device you are allowed to have the song on.

Actually I think most of this post is incorrect... to my memory... you can burn a playlist 7 times, play your song on up to 5 computers (Windows & Mac), and have it on an unlimited number of portable devices (iPods). If you have the song on 10 playlists you can burn each playlist 7 times which would be 70 burns of the same song.

[SilentPanda]

Actually, the magic number is 5.

I don't beleive it's legal for you to copy songs to a CD for your friend, not that that stops anyone. Think of it this way, if you buy the CD in a store and copy the CD and distribute them to your friends, it's illegal. Same thing applies to individuals songs on a CD "mix". Unless you get written permissions from the artist and record label, it's not legal. OR, if the artist is someone who encourages free distribution of live material, like Phish and the Grateful Dead, then you have nothing to worry about.

It would be legal (I presume) if you buy the song, burn it for a friend and then delete the song.

[yellow]

It would be legal (I presume) if you buy the song, burn it for a friend and then delete the song.

I think that would be "legal". Though I wouldn't be surprised if the RIAA wanted to start documenting ownership ;)