Renting or Buying Audio Books on Tape
The law is a very specific thing. In order to be binding the wording has to be exact. In a fair world there would not be loop holes because everyone would know exactly what was meant and not try to subvert the law. Recently audio books on tape found itself in the middle of the legal battles regarding copyright infringement. Is it fair to the author and publishing house for a person to be able to copy the books without their express permission? Is audio books not covered under the same laws that govern the copyright of music and movies?
Audio books on tape or actually any format of audio books fall under a different ruling than that of the movie industry or the recording industry. Several years ago there were several lawsuits enacted due to copyright infringement. It was ruled that before a movie or piece of music could be rented or copied the artist or owner had to give permission.
After that ruling there were questions regarding whether audio books on tape and audio books CD fell under this same legislation since technically the book was intellectual property. Could a recording of a book be rented or downloaded without the author or publishing company's permission? The terminology of this issue related to what is termed "right of first sale". The courts later determined that the laws governing movies and music's copyright legalities did not apply to audio books. But the question remains whether or not this is fair and equitable to the authors.
When an author writes a piece, be it for a magazine, newspaper or in a book, it is his or her intellectual property. Once the piece has been published, and in this case, recorded onto a medium for listening then it can be reproduced and rented out. Eventually the permission factor will have to be sought out for audio books on tape, or for that matter any recording of a book, in order to be rented and copied but first the exact letters of the law will have to be changed.
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