How legal is it?

That probably sounds like a strange question just about everywhere but in the world of digital entertainment. The Los Angeles Times takes a sweeping snapshot of current thinking on the part of music consumers and copyright law experts. For example, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll found that “among teens ages 12 to 17 who were polled, 69% said they believed it was legal to copy a CD from a friend who purchased the original. By comparison, only 21% said it was legal to copy a CD if a friend got the music free.” In fact, the recording and film industry associations (the RIAA and MPAA) point to the ripping of CDs and DVDs and their biggest threat now, not peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing (“80% of teens surveyed in the poll said downloading free music from unauthorized computer networks was a crime”). Meanwhile, consumer and trade organizations are criticizing the RIAA’s educational video about copyright law for steering viewers wrong. The video “suggests that students should be skeptical of free content and that it’s always illegal to make a copy of a song, even if it’s just to introduce a friend to a new band,” reports CNET, citing the view of Robert Schwartz, general counsel for the Home Recording Rights Coalition, “one of the groups opposed to the video.” Also in music news this week: a soon-to-launch free and legal music-download site called SpiralFrog.com, which will share ad revenue with the record labels that supply it. Reuters reported Universal Music signed on. According to the New York Times, “though the venture is not the first to try a free ad-supported approach, the backing of Universal, with millions of songs in its catalog from thousands of artists like Eminem and Gwen Stefani, Elton John and Gloria Estefan, Count Basie and Hank Williams, promises to give it instant credibility and scale.”