Quote:
Originally Posted by danielf
I have the money 
Seriously: I doubt it is illegal to 'distribute the title of copyrighted materials', if so, the people in the 'what are you listening to now' thread would be in serious trouble. If I put an mp3 online that claims to be a copyrighted material but is in fact not, then surely I would not be breaching copyrights? |
It is actually even illegal to distribute silence in a recorded work, the precedent for this was set in
2002 . I didn't say there was anything illegal in distributing the title of copyrighted works - copyright affords no protection to song titles due to their relative lack of uniqueness. What you were suggesting initially was "impersonation" which could be construed by the popular band, group, artiste in question as a wilful attempt to undervalue or misrepresent their copyrighted works.
You cannot create an "original" MP3 of anything that is not covered by existing copyright laws. Once something is created, copyright applies automatically (your copyright, admittedly). Putting something which is the result of a creative endeavour in the public domain and claiming it is not copyrighted would not be factually correct and the creator (copyright holder) would be well within his / her / their rights to sue.
It would not, however, make sense for you to sue yourself but you can rest assured, as evidenced in the Batt case referenced above, "Where there's a hit there's a writ".
It's a very convoluted area of law, but law nonetheless.
That'll be £48.70 + VAT thanks.