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Is zshare legal?
RoyceSraphim
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I get home from my second day at training at my new job and I discover my baby brother has downloaded a large number of songs onto my laptop (main computers are down due to power surges, a long story). He says he got them from zshare, on the advice of the niketalk forums. Now while I have done some shit like this long ago, I stopped, mainly to support the pc industry because piracy deprives me of good games.
Now, while there is little doubt that this is the sort of shit that will send the RIAA to my house with a trunk full of gerbil food to shove up my ass, I would like confirmation from these sacred halls of knowledge before I start getting parental on the little fuzz ball.
Now, while there is little doubt that this is the sort of shit that will send the RIAA to my house with a trunk full of gerbil food to shove up my ass, I would like confirmation from these sacred halls of knowledge before I start getting parental on the little fuzz ball.
RoyceSraphim on
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Also, zShare only acts when official complaints are filed, like most hosting services.
Even if the technology/distribution system/hub/hosting service is legit, that doesn't mean the files are kosher. If they're a bunch of indie bands who might plausibly be giving away freebies, that's one thing, but if they're acts who probably want people to pay for their music, and your brother didn't pay for it, it's almost certainly infringement.
Don't worry about the RIAA. Their tactics are finally drawing the ire of the judicial system in the U.S., and at this point, it would be absolutely foolhardy for them to sue another child. Your brother isn't going to have to worry about anything.
I think the OP's only concern was whether or not the files were illegally obtained, and it sounds like they were.
This is most definitely not a situation where fair use could possibly be shoe-horned into a defense.
Assuming zShare doesn't demand you upload after you download, it is unlikely you will find yourself the target of an RIAA lawsuit. That being said, the music was still obtained through illegal means, so I would not keep it around and advise your brother to look into proper methods of obtaining music (iTunes/similar or a record store).
This is a gross exaggeration of what fair use entitles you to. Fair use is actually a complex and nuanced subject, it is an intentionally gray area of the law, and it depends on a combination of four key factors as outlined here. Unfortunately, you cannot make a determination on your own of whether a use is fair use or not. You can make a highly accurate guess in some cases, especially if there are previous court rulings on a set of circumstances, but you cannot be completely sure without adjudication.
Solely using a work for educational purposes does not make a use "fair use." For example, if I am teaching a class and I decide to make Xerox copies of the textbook for all 50 students, that's educational, but it's never going to be ruled fair use in a million years. You've obviously failed standards three and four:
This is true, but note that you cannot sell the copies to your friends. Just the original. This is called the "right of first sale" or the "first sale doctrine."
Whether or not the RIAA's tactics are winning hearts and minds in the justice system, you're still taking a risk every time you download music illegally over P2P or other networks. There is no fundamental reason why the RIAA cannot get some smarter experts and more conscientious lawyers and start causing a lot of trouble. Read Ray Beckerman's ramblings all you want, but realize that at the end of the day, he's simply arguing procedure - not basic copyright law and not the facts, neither of which are on his side.
zShare is just a file hosting site such as Rapidshare. Its content is provided by the users, and their ToS indicates that you need to have the rights to distribute the files that you are uploading. The RIAA, or any record label, who has a problem with their files being hosted on their service has a right to send a takedown notice which they will immediately comply with.
As a user, you are just downloading files from a web page. There's no uploading or sharing involved, nor do they require any account or contact information to download. Because of this, it's highly unlikely that the RIAA will attempt to prosecute zShare users because it's currently difficult (and probably not very lucrative) to convict for copyright infringement in American courts where there is no copying or distributing being done. They might attempt to prosecute zShare uploaders if they feel so inclined, assuming zShare retains user data on files uploaded, but they haven't yet.
However, that doesn't make it legal, assuming these aren't songs released under Creative Commons or similar licenses. Fair use has absolutely nothing to do with it. If he's acquiring songs that he does not have the rights to own, it's illegal. This is pretty much the definition of copyright infringement.
But do you have legal repercussions to worry about? Almost definitely not. Maybe in the future, but right now, the RIAA is a long way from suing anonymous and sporadic HTTP downloaders.