Rather than storing it locally, it’s just online... or am I missing something here?
We are are a curated Funkwhale music server promoting libre audio - usually released under Creative Commons licenses and through netlabels.
So this should answer your question. It's legal because it's not illegal.
I've been meaning to deploy this at my home server, but then with Covid and WFH my need to have it available outside has been reduced dramatically.
In the Betamax case, the Supreme Court said that it would not be fair to use copyrighted works in a way which “if it should become widespread … would adversely affect the potential market for the copyrighted work.” Time-shifting was not considered to adversely affect the market for commercial TV. But surely a tool like Funkwhale, “if it should become widespread,” would adversely affect the music streaming industry?
Who would they sue, how would they monitor the usage and how would they enforce anything?
With torrents and big sites it's easy to show who is distributing what and the distribution can be done by anyone.
This is a decentralized tool that can have its access controlled. The only you could get sued is if you have a really shitty friend who goes to court and brings evidence showing you distributed too many songs.
It’s true that enforcement is a practical challenge. However, the developers of the Funkwhale software are probably not as decentralised as the operators of Funkwhale pods. Copyright holders could potentially get future development shut down on the basis that the service implicitly authorises or encourages copyright infringement, as they are trying to do to youtube-dl. The details depend on where the developers live, but this strategy has worked for some tools like Napster, KaZaA, and some BitTorrent trackers, while failing for BitTorrent clients. Which side of the line will Funkwhale fall on?
> One difference is that blank CDs cost money.
So does internet access, electricity to run the servers, disks to store the data. Your point?
> Copyright holders could potentially get future development shut down on the basis that the service implicitly authorises or encourages copyright infringement, as they are trying to do to youtube-dl.
Bullshit. The same argument could be made against a web browser. It's not just because RIAA is making some absurd claim that is yet to be dropped in court that their claims are valid.
Also, even if the RIAA managed to block access to a central point of development, it would be at most a nuisance. Developers of whatever project gets blocked from Github need to do nothing youtube-dl
> this strategy has worked for some tools like Napster, KaZaA, and some BitTorrent trackers. while failing for BitTorrent clients.
Very easy to see how the strategy only works against corporations, not against open source projects. KaZaA got sued, but GnuTella lives on.
First of all, what do you mean by "this"?
You mention Napster and Limewire. These are things. Things cannot be illegal. Actions can be illegal.
A certain action is illegal if there is a paragraph in the applicable jurisdiction that forbids it.
It might be illegal to manufacture, own, fake, destroy or distribute a thing. But a thing on its own cannot be illegal. What would that even mean.
So who did what, which jurisdiction is applicable and which paragraph forbids it?
Edit: You have since edited your comment but let’s still start there.
Though the RIAA might see it differently, as they have with other open-source software in the past (ref the recent DMCA takedown requests of youtube-dl GitHub repositories). They might argue the software is designed for copyright infringement and as such should be blocked.
This is a tool to satisfy the use case of sharing music with others. Sometimes such sharing will be illegal, but at other times it won't.
In that case, it is in RIAA's best interest that everything is locked down and they maintain exclusive control over as many things as possible. It is also in their favour to make the public view anything related to sharing of media files as suspect. That doesn't mean this position is reasonable and valid.
Should you be considered a child-molester just because I accuse you to be one?
Take a look at:
https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/ https://www.jamendo.com/start http://ccmixter.org/
Nine Inch Nails have CC licensed albums. So "being famous" and "music that is under a CC license" is not mutually exclusive...
I could setup a server with my music collection and give access to my friends. That is fair-use.