[icebraining]

There's no such thing as "legit content". Licensing is not a characteristic of the content, it's a relationship between the content and the person distributing it.

So give a crude example, the content on Netflix is "legit", in the sense that they have the right to distribute it, but that doesn't make it legal for you to record and retransmit the same content.

If you don't know if you can distribute it, you should assume you can't, because that's the default position in the law. You need to have some kind of license to override it.

[voxic11]

He doesn't distribute it though, only links to it. I am pretty sure I am allowed to link to netflix even though I don't have distribution rights for the content hosted there.

[icebraining]

Beemp3 provides just links. HyperMusic (from the screenshots) actually played them on the app itself. Maybe it downloaded them locally, but that's an irrelevant technical detail.

[alextingle]

> If you don't know if you can distribute it, you should assume you can't

That's 100% wrong. The default state of a work of art is to be in the public domain. Copyright law creates only a limited exception to that general rule.

[falcolas]

That's actually incorrect in the US. The default state of a work of art is that it is copyrighted with ownership granted to the creator, with all rights reserved.

These rights have to be waived for it to become public domain.

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#102

[pyre]

It's actually difficult to explicitly put your work in the public domain. There are no well-worn routes to doing so.

[russellsprouts]

The Creative Commons level zero license is probably the best option. In some jurisdictions it is impossible to give up something into the public domain, so the CC0 explicitly gives up as many rights as possible. If it is possible to put something into the public domain, then it does.

[dlgeek]

That's incorrect in any country (167 of them, including most of the west) that signed the Berne Convention (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_convention), which makes all works copyright-by-default.

[alextingle]

For a limited time.

[Nursie]

Morally speaking you might be right, and on geological timescales, sure. But every work is under copyright the moment it is created until copyright expires unless the creator specifically gives it to the PD.

In the modern world, unfortunately, if there's no accompanying license with the material it's pretty likely that you don't have the legal right to distribute it.

[alextingle]

I am aware of that. However, it doesn't invalidate my point.

[rhino369]

Not really. Works are automatically copyrighted upon creation. It's not some limited exception. You cannot assume a work is public domain until proven otherwise. Otherwise you'll be getting a nastygram from the RIAA.

[alextingle]

Works are automatically copyrighted upon creation for a limited time.