Is my idea legal?

Ekim · 15 May 2003 at 02:34

Hi,

I had an idea the other day but not sure how legal it was!

Basically I was wondering if it would be possible to produce a Jukebox, for Pubs and the such like, that the user could put their own CD's in to to request a song from.

Basically it would be done by when the user inserts their CD and selects a track it would rip the track to MP3 or other another format and play it like that. The user could then remove their CD and wait for their song to come on, assuming it doesn't play straight away and is in a queue.

However how legal is that?

Is it the same as films for example in that you can't play the music for a public performance?

Also if the above is above board and not legal, then would it be possible to store the music file, make it inaccessable so that no-one can use it to listen again, unless someone comes in with the same cd and trys to play the same song again, saves the waiting time of ripping.

Augmented · 15 May 2003 at 02:44

Should be legally okay. As long as you had the relevant licences. PRS for playing the music and the MCPS licence for making a copy of tracks for later playing.

Jono · 15 May 2003 at 10:17

OOoh someone just described my final year project

masterluke · 15 May 2003 at 14:22

i think that when you buy music you get the right to listen to it yourself... you also get the right to make a copy for backup purposes.

..unfortunately AFAIK you DO NOT get the right to make a copy for public performance like it would be in a pub..

i doubt anyone would ever get in trouble for this but im pretty sure its illegal

Jono · 15 May 2003 at 15:25

Yeah, as augmented mentioned, you'd need a licence

Manlove is my forte · 15 May 2003 at 17:39

It would probibly be legal if all the royalties were paid out to the music compaines.

Ie if the juke box was connected to the internet and every time the song was played the owners were notified and a chage to the jukbox owners was made.

In that respect I think the Jukebox could store all the music it played and every time a song was played then a transaction occured. The Jukbox would obviously have to charge the user more than the cost of the royalties.

Augmented · 15 May 2003 at 18:06

Originally posted by Kronologic
It would probibly be legal if all the royalties were paid out to the music compaines.

This is where the licensing comes into play. The PRS (Performing Rights Society) is a company that collects royalties on behalf of copyright holders signed up with them (pretty much every big label). It is for anytime a track is played/broadcast publically. The MCPS (Mechanical Copyright Protection Society) is the same, but deals with collecting royalties whenever somebody makes a physical copy of a song. Be it stored on jukebox, an advert, sampler CD and so on.
So in this instance you would require both for public broadcast.