-----Original Message----- From Tom Fine: "The way I've noticed that this works in the actual marketplace today is that people put stuff out, either for download or sales as CD's. They have a website. If they get a lawyer letter, the material comes down and I assume that in some cases, the people who hired the lawyer get paid some small damages... " It is a crime to make a copy of anything outside the public domain without permission unless there is a specific legal exemption such as personal use copies of commercially released music recordings. This risk is a lot like the sampling issue in hip hop. If you remain under the radar you probably won't get caught or face more than a slap on the wrist. On the other hand, something going viral on the web could force you into bankruptcy because the copyright owner has the right to charge you anything they like for each copy that got distributed and it would be very hard to argue that you weren't the only source of an unpublished recording. There are also criminal penalties and, in the case of unpublished works, invasion of privacy issues. Bob Olhsson Audio Mastery, Nashville TN Mastering, Audio for Picture, Mix Evaluation and Quality Control Over 40 years making people sound better than they ever imagined! 615.562.4346 http://www.bobolhsson.com http://audiomastery.com