TEACHING ABOUT MIDI, MP3 and the LAW

TEACHING ABOUT MIDI, MP3 and the LAW

­ Music students of all ages should have an understanding of the basic definitions of MIDI and Mp3. The legal implications surrounding Mp3 files should also be understood. Here’s a briefing that could be used in a music (technology) class.

MIDI

• MIDI, Musical Instrument Digital Interface allows a computer to record and playback musical data.
• It was developed in 1983 and it revolutionized the way music is produced.
• Usually MIDI keyboards are used to input music into a notation program like Print Music, Finale or Sibelius.

Mp3

• These are the music files found on iPods and other Mp3 players.
• Mp3 is short for Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) which is a working group under the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that sets the standards for encoding audio and video in digital format.
• Mp3 refers to MPEG layer 3 which can achieve a compression ratio of 12:1. This means it can reduce the size of a standard music file (wave file) by 12 times. As an example, a wave file that is 40.8 Megabytes (MB) can be reduced to a file that is only 3.4 MB while retaining a decent sound quality.

DISCUSSION:

Since most Mp3’s come from CD’s of artists who have copyrighted their material, sharing or distributing this music is illegal in most cases. Peer to Peer (P2P) networks have allowed easy sharing of files between individuals which is a wonderful tool but when copyrighted material is shared, that’s where the trouble starts. That’s how Napster got in trouble. Now, Napster provides legal downloads because they charge money for copyrighted material and they send that money to the RIAA. The Recording Industry Association of America is the trade group that represents the U.S. recording industry.

Below is an example of legal music download sites and sites that MAY allow users to share copyrighted material. **Just because individuals may share copyrighted material, it doesn’t mean that the site owners condone that behavior. So these sites shouldn’t be thought of as “illegal”. Individuals should use their own discretion when choosing to use these sites.

Legitimate (can’t break the law here)	Possiblity of copyright problems (easy to find copyrighted material for free)
iTunes (Apple)	Kazaa (just settled a lawsuit)
Rhapsody (powered by REAL)	Limewire
Napster	Bearshare
Emusic	Morpheus
Yahoo Musicmatch