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Legal Alternatives
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Many legal alternatives to copyright infringement exist. The Amazon Music
Store, iTunes, Rhapsody, Hulu, Netflix, Last.fm, and YouTube are just a few of the places where you
can download music or watch movies and television shows legally. Some are subscription services
(e.g., Netflix), some are available at low cost ($0.99/song at iTunes, for example), while others
are free (Hulu and YouTube). Many artists, especially new and independent musicians, make sample
songs available through their web sites.
Here is a link to a resource page maintained by Educause:
Legal content downloading page
If you own a music CD, you are permitted to copy ("rip") that
music for playback on your personal computer or portable music player. You are not permitted to
make a copy of that CD to give to someone else #8212;that is unauthorized distribution—
unless you are specifically granted such permission, such as through a Creative Commons license.
If you own digital tracks (e.g., downloads from the Amazon Music Store), you are permitted to copy
those tracks onto a CD for backup purposes. The same prohibition on distribution to others applies
to digital tracks as well.
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