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and as previously stated, Yahoo Groups can be private,by invitation only, and they come with a files section that is accessible to the members




Two things here, Pat. First, if you're talking about simply finding a way to hide it from "the man" sure, this will probably work, as I said millions of people do this sort of thing every day. Second, since we're in a public forum here, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act(DMCA) clearly states per it's name that any digital copying beyond your own personal use in your own home is illegal. Period. Personal use means something like copying a CD/DVD you bought on your own hard drive or burning a dup disc for archiving purposes in case the original gets lost or destroyed. Techically you're not even allowed to play it for friends in your own living room.

Anything any of us posts on the internet is considered "published" in a legal sense. Read the DMCA, it's spelled out there in detail. Putting copywritten material on one of those members only Yahoo groups or any other site is still considered as being digitally published, it's outside of the scope of your own personal use and is forbidden. The real biggie is it makes no difference if it's being done for money or not. Just doing it as a fan for free matters not at all.

Also, all this stuff I may talk about concerning hidden websites and such is based strictly on what I've read or talked about with others, I certainly have never done such things.

Cool idea though.

Bob




Bob
I agree with everything you say, and I think that point has been understood by all the whole time this discussion has been going. The one and only point of discussing it at all is to avoid implicating PGMusic by posting stuff here.

The fact remains that the reason why so much protected stuff CAN indeed be found online is because the lawyers who prosecute such cases have this predictable need to end up with money at the end of the lawsuit. Theres no money to be made in uncovering and prosecuting a handful of individuals. Even much larger sites, like the Yahoo BIAB group, which has for years held large repositories of protected songs, complete with melody, title, signatuire licks FOR THE EXPRESS PURPOSE OF DISTRIBUTING THEM ... they are still in business. Every now and then they get a warning and then remove whatver song was named in the warning, or repost the songs without the melody.

My point is that the likelihood of getting busted as small fish who aren't highly visible is very very low

Having said that, I have no interest in the project. But anybody who wants to play their songs for friends has recently heard a number of ways to make it happen... or not. Just don't do it here. This open discussion is already borderline problematic for PGMusic