Ok, call me the person who looks the gift horse in the mouth. I’m searching around for MP3s of Beatles tunes for download. iTunes - No have. Yahoo music - no have. MP3Fiesta - has, and for only $0.10 a song!
Now, to me, this raises the question as to how legitimate the download is at that site. Lots of places claim “legal” downloadable mp3s, including most sites that have them for “free.” But I have trouble believing that the Beatles pass up the chance to license their music to the big sites, with good prices, and allow some place that prices by “demand” to have a license.
Can anyone tell me if MP3Fiesta really has a license to sell Beatles mp3s? Is this really legit? Or is it a scam, having people pay for what they can just as easily get for free, if they are already willing to violate copyright law? :eek:
They display a license from the Russian Federation on their site. My WAG, it’s not legal in the U.S. under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. I don’t know how aggressively the RIAA or U.S. government would go after someone who purchases music from them, but they do seem to be skirting U.S. copyright law.
Definitely legal in Russia per their courts, and dependant on individual country’s laws for people downloading internationally. As E-Sabbath said, it hasn’t explicity been ruled illegal to download from international sites into the US, though there are pending lawsuits.
Of course, uploading and distributing in the US remains illegal.
Wikipedia has some good background on the legal battles…
Personally, I only use these types of sites for the obscure music that is otherwise unavailable commercially here. I like lots of J-pop and German electronic stuff that simply isn’t sold directly by any labels here.
