Posted on 05/13/2004 9:49:55 PM PDT by quietolong
Chippewa Falls Prom CD
Paige Pearson
The prom committee usually comes up with ideas for giveaways, and this year they decided on CDs featuring songs played at prom like the Bangles' "Walk Like an Egyptian" and Sara Evans' "Born to Fly."
One little problem: those songs are protected by U.S. copyright laws, and it's illegal to copy songs that are not in the public domain.
Chi Hi officials say they are more than willing to comply with the Recording Industry of America, which is currently investigating the case. That might include paying a licensing fee or even trying to retrieve all five-hundred CDs from the students.
Are people so clueless they couldn't see a problem with giving away 500 CD's full of popular music? If the CD's were recordings of the Prom itself and the music was audible over other stuff that was going on, it probably still wouldn't be legal, but at least it would fall somewhat within legal gray areas (private recordings of events where copyrighted music happens to be played are generally legit, if the music is not the primary focus of the recording, but something that's widely distributed isn't a "private recording").
May not have been the smartest thing to do these days. But it's only a mixed CD of music given away free at the Prom.
This was done with cassettes for years with no issue.
Heck back when I was in the Navy. Special Services had recording rooms. Were you could record cassettes from LP's or reel to reel's
More interesting is how did they know they were doing this?
Indeed.....the how do they know question is more important.
Does the RIAA have spies?
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