For example one of nodes :

  We are are a curated Funkwhale music server promoting libre audio - usually released under Creative Commons licenses and through netlabels.

https://open.audio

So this should answer your question. It's legal because it's not illegal.

Not just that. Sharing access with a friend would fall under fair-use.

I've been meaning to deploy this at my home server, but then with Covid and WFH my need to have it available outside has been reduced dramatically.

Which copyright law are you talking about? My impression is that streaming a reasonably large collection of copyrighted music (say 10,000 tracks) to a reasonable number of friends (say 10) would not be considered fair use by U.S. courts. The RIAA doesn’t sue people for this because it’s hard to detect and the damages are too small to cover legal costs, not because they accept it as fair use.

In the Betamax case, the Supreme Court said that it would not be fair to use copyrighted works in a way which “if it should become widespread … would adversely affect the potential market for the copyrighted work.” Time-shifting was not considered to adversely affect the market for commercial TV. But surely a tool like Funkwhale, “if it should become widespread,” would adversely affect the music streaming industry?

How is this different from the case of a dude with a big CD collection and a copier who tell his friends "bring blank cds and burn copies if you want anything"?

Who would they sue, how would they monitor the usage and how would they enforce anything?

With torrents and big sites it's easy to show who is distributing what and the distribution can be done by anyone.

This is a decentralized tool that can have its access controlled. The only you could get sued is if you have a really shitty friend who goes to court and brings evidence showing you distributed too many songs.

One difference is that blank CDs cost money. In the Betamax case the cost of blank tapes was one reason why time-shifting was not seen as a serious threat to the market that copyright laws are intended to support, because it made it hard to build up a big library. But in any case, I think the RIAA would say that both the CD dude and the Funkwhale dude are infringing copyright, and U.S. courts would agree.

It’s true that enforcement is a practical challenge. However, the developers of the Funkwhale software are probably not as decentralised as the operators of Funkwhale pods. Copyright holders could potentially get future development shut down on the basis that the service implicitly authorises or encourages copyright infringement, as they are trying to do to youtube-dl. The details depend on where the developers live, but this strategy has worked for some tools like Napster, KaZaA, and some BitTorrent trackers, while failing for BitTorrent clients. Which side of the line will Funkwhale fall on?

Sorry, your whole argument smells of FUD.

> One difference is that blank CDs cost money.

So does internet access, electricity to run the servers, disks to store the data. Your point?

> Copyright holders could potentially get future development shut down on the basis that the service implicitly authorises or encourages copyright infringement, as they are trying to do to youtube-dl.

Bullshit. The same argument could be made against a web browser. It's not just because RIAA is making some absurd claim that is yet to be dropped in court that their claims are valid.

Also, even if the RIAA managed to block access to a central point of development, it would be at most a nuisance. Developers of whatever project gets blocked from Github need to do nothing youtube-dl

> this strategy has worked for some tools like Napster, KaZaA, and some BitTorrent trackers. while failing for BitTorrent clients.

Very easy to see how the strategy only works against corporations, not against open source projects. KaZaA got sued, but GnuTella lives on.

My point is that the courts decide what constitutes “fair use,” and based on past decisions, I don’t think they would agree that using Funkwhale to share 10,000 tracks with 10 friends counts. Until a court says otherwise, it’s not FUD, bullshit or absurd to point out that these tools exist in a legal grey area.

And my point is that claiming it to be in a "legal grey area" is the absurd part. Funkwhale is as much of a legal grey area as a web browser and a web server.

From my understanding it's legal for the same reason Apache, nginx, curl, etc. are legal. The software can be used to violate copyright, but that doesn't make the software itself illegal.

Tell that to youtubedl. Embrace for stricter control from copyright groups because they don't like the tools either.

There is music you are allowed to share, e.g. music licenced under some Creative Commons licences. It's up to whoever hosts a Funkwhale instance to ensure that it only hosts legal music, I'd assume.

Lots of confusion in this question. Where do I even start ...

First of all, what do you mean by "this"?

You mention Napster and Limewire. These are things. Things cannot be illegal. Actions can be illegal.

A certain action is illegal if there is a paragraph in the applicable jurisdiction that forbids it.

It might be illegal to manufacture, own, fake, destroy or distribute a thing. But a thing on its own cannot be illegal. What would that even mean.

So who did what, which jurisdiction is applicable and which paragraph forbids it?

Let’s start with number one. By this, I mean the act of publicly posting music for others to listen to for free without paying the artist.

Edit: You have since edited your comment but let’s still start there.

Uhh, is youtube-dl a thing?

Yes. Much like the RIAA, you are confusing distribution with ownership.

As others have said. There is nothing inherently illegal about the software. As long as you are licensed to share the music you host in the instance there is nothing illegal going on.

Though the RIAA might see it differently, as they have with other open-source software in the past (ref the recent DMCA takedown requests of youtube-dl GitHub repositories). They might argue the software is designed for copyright infringement and as such should be blocked.

I don't understand your confusion. Are you under the impression that the very act of sharing music online is illegal?

Yes, maybe that’s where my confusion sits. If I take a bunch of music and put together a playlist and post it on, say YouTube or my own site, that is perfectly fine?

This depends on both the music in question and your jurisdiction. There is nothing inherent about "music" that makes it illegal to share it with others. Is it Taylor Swift or something your friend recorded? It makes a big difference.

This is a tool to satisfy the use case of sharing music with others. Sometimes such sharing will be illegal, but at other times it won't.

Couldn’t the same be said for youtube-dl? Again, I don’t know.. just curious.

People seem to assume that, just because youtube-dl got a single takedown request from a prospective plaintiff, it’s now as illegal as cocaine. The reality is that youtube-dl is a perfectly legal tool, and it will continue to be so at least until a judge rules otherwise — and even then, only in a specific jurisdiction.

Should you be considered a child-molester just because I accuse you to be one?

Wow, you got real dark with that one.

Exactly, youtube-dl is a legal tool. You have to expect that everyone is trying to game the law and push the scales in their favour.

In that case, it is in RIAA's best interest that everything is locked down and they maintain exclusive control over as many things as possible. It is also in their favour to make the public view anything related to sharing of media files as suspect. That doesn't mean this position is reasonable and valid.

Yes, the same could and has been said about YouTube-dl. It depends what you do with the tool. If you are using it to download videos that specifically allow this, then there is nothing illegal about it. It's the same thing with a hammer. You can use it for legal or illegal actions, but that doesn't make the hammer an illegal tool...

By watching videos or listening to videos, you make a non-digital copy of it in your mind! Is that legal? If you hum the song, is it illegal reproduction? If you describe the video to a friend, is that unauthorized reproduction? If you formulate a critique of it, is it an illegal derieved work? Who gets payed in these cases?

Here comes the hilarious twisted language to justify 'sharing'.

Yes, as long the musician licensed his/her work in a way that let you do it. In some cases you also allowed to reuse that music in your work.

Take a look at:

https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/ https://www.jamendo.com/start http://ccmixter.org/

I’m not talking music that is under a CC license - I’m talking lil bow wow and the spice girls.

It's the same. It's not "who is?", it's "have you a license to do it?". If you have a license to reshare spice girls works, and you want to use funkwhale, well, you can.

Nine Inch Nails have CC licensed albums. So "being famous" and "music that is under a CC license" is not mutually exclusive...

I don’t think there is anyone on HN confused on that. I’m sorry if it slipped beyond you but I’m specifically talking music people don’t have permission or the rights to sharing.

The problem was with how you phrased your original comment. You implied that it (the tool?) is not legal because it offers "the ability to share your music online". This is why people started replying in this sense.

It depends on who you are sharing with and the context.

I could setup a server with my music collection and give access to my friends. That is fair-use.

Well, as much as you can make software freely available, you can also make music and podcasts freely available. However, there is no such thing as "Github for Music". I like the decentralized approach.

Have you ever seen an <audio> element on a web page? That also has the ability to share your music online.

Same great area that plex lives in i guess

If it's decentralised, then I guess it doesn't have to be legal...

the same way as Youtube or Bittorrent are legal