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Fun times. Once upon a time I was working at a university in New Zealand. At that time Apple had created a way to legally stream your iTunes catalog to other LAN users—mostly as a way of enabling the college campus music sharing experience without the illegalities of OG Napster, Limewire, and the ilk.

I got a nastygram from the IT department for sharing my iTunes catalog. I replied that it was my understanding that the iTunes streaming was legal. They concurred, but said that format-shifting my albums had been illegal. I countered that I format shifted my CDs in the US, where it was legal.

In the end, the IT security people agreed that I was probably totally legal, but they asked me to please refrain from leaving the iTunes sharing turned on because it made their lives hard. That was a compelling argument, and so I turned off iTunes sharing. :-)

EDIT: I should note that format shifting was later made legal in NZ last I knew. Hopefully it still is.



What is "format shifting"?




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