What is "piracy" defined as?

[Death God]

My school has a zero music/movie piracy requirement now and I have always been pirating music both knowingly and un-knowingly. What I wanted to know is two things: (1) What does the law constitute or define as piracy and (2) if there is an application on my web-browser that allows for the conversion of youtube videos into mp3 files, is it still considered pirating to use it? I doubt that a widely know browser such as Firefox would know give it's users access to piracy so that is why I am wondering if it is legal. I have been trying to find a legitimate way of getting music but due to my family's low income and little money to spend at will, it is difficult to spend 10-15 bucks every time I find one or two songs that I like. So if you guys also know a way to get music without paying every "tom-dick-and-harry" for it, I would appreciate it.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Hmmm...youtube is rather dodgy alot of the time. Not sure how legal alot of those videos are, but then again, alot of them seem to be put up officially by the copyright holders.

As to downloading from youtube...grey area.

On the other hand, this is something that'd vary between jurisdiction, and likely to be very unclear anyway. Some places don't prosecute alot of forms of piracy that they outlaw, making it difficult to determine what is allowed and what is merely tolerated.

 

[ZiggyE]

Piracy is a war-like act committed by non-state actors (private parties not affiliated with any government) against other parties at sea, and especially acts of robbery and/or criminal violence at sea.

 

[b3nn3tt]

My school has a zero music/movie piracy requirement now and I have always been pirating music both knowingly and un-knowingly. What I wanted to know is two things: (1) What does the law constitute or define as piracy

'The act of violence or depredation on the high seas; also, the theft of Intellectual Property, especially in electronic media.'

From http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/piracy

So downloading music, under this definition, is piracy.

and (2) if there is an application on my web-browser that allows for the conversion of youtube videos into mp3 files, is it still considered pirating to use it?

Yes, this is most definitely piracy.

I doubt that a widely know browser such as Firefox would know give it's users access to piracy so that is why I am wondering if it is legal. I have been trying to find a legitimate way of getting music but due to my family's low income and little money to spend at will, it is difficult to spend 10-15 bucks every time I find one or two songs that I like. So if you guys also know a way to get music without paying every "tom-dick-and-harry" for it, I would appreciate it.

If you get iTunes, you can buy individual songs, which cost a lot less than a whole album, which I assume is what you buy for 10-15 bucks.

 

[DigitalSushi]

My school has a zero music/movie piracy requirement now and I have always been pirating music both knowingly and un-knowingly. What I wanted to know is two things: (1) What does the law constitute or define as piracy and (2) if there is an application on my web-browser that allows for the conversion of youtube videos into mp3 files, is it still considered pirating to use it? I doubt that a widely know browser such as Firefox would know give it's users access to piracy so that is why I am wondering if it is legal. I have been trying to find a legitimate way of getting music but due to my family's low income and little money to spend at will, it is difficult to spend 10-15 bucks every time I find one or two songs that I like. So if you guys also know a way to get music without paying every "tom-dick-and-harry" for it, I would appreciate it.

Radio is the answer your looking for.

Downloading videos off Youtube is pirating, because your removing the adclicks Youtube would get.

If you don't have the money for something, then you aren't entitled to it, I went out and copied a Ferrari the other day...

OK I admit thats stupid, I'd never copy a Ferrari, I'm a Lamborghini type of guy.

Piracy is a war-like act committed by non-state actors (private parties not affiliated with any government) against other parties at sea, and especially acts of robbery and/or criminal violence at sea.

That made me giggle, I didn't LOL, I giggled like a little girl.

 

[GenericAmerican]

I just want to know what you mean by your school having a zero piracy requirement?

 

[Jedoro]

If you get iTunes, you can buy individual songs, which cost a lot less than a whole album, which I assume is what you buy for 10-15 bucks.

You can also buy 'em on Amazon.com and download their Cloud player. 5gb of free storage, and you can listen to it on any computer you download the player on.

 

[MrJKapowey]

Piracy is a war-like act committed by non-state actors (private parties not affiliated with any government) against other parties at sea, and especially acts of robbery and/or criminal violence at sea.

Damn...

Ninja'd

 

[Jordi]

If your school has the requirement, I'm fairly sure it doesn't matter what the law says. What you need is your school's definition of piracy (unless you intend to fight them after you get expelled by pointing out the differences between their definition and the law's).

Anyway, I would say downloading from YouTube is definitely piracy. It is no different from downloading it from a torrent or something like that. I'm not even sure if watching unlicensed videos on YouTube is not some kind of piracy (although it's probably the uploader who is at fault then and not the audience).
Firefox "allows" users to do that, because it is piracy that is illegal (in some jurisdictions), not enabling it. Furthermore, the enabling tool you are talking about is probably a third-party extension.

And as others pointed out, there are cheaper, legal ways to get music than you are doing now.

 

[AlAaraaf74]

I didn't realize schools had such a big problem with this issue...

 

[Wickatricka]

I know a lot of people have problems with piracy but ask your self one question if you couldn't get the game/music/movie for free would you buy it? Most of the time its no.