How to avoid Copyright Infringment Laws?

When I got to my new location we had 3 morale servers; one for games, another for music, and one for movies and TV.

About a week ago we had some inspectors come and take them offline because of legal violations. We have tried to mess with the permissions on these servers but it seem like you have the ability to either copy them and play them or you have neither.

Right now we are trying to streamline all the media and putting a link up to a website to access these files.

The real issue is the music. We do not physically own any of the music and there are thousands of songs on our server from people who have long left the base.

Is there any way around the legalities of having to physically own the music to have it available to the base populace or do we have to start from scratch and try to find funds to buy a stock of music? Somehow I think the second option is a little less than feesable but we have been tasked with the job of getting this back up and we have no clue where else to begin.

Only if you can obtain the copyrights to those music files, I think.

I would contact a solicitor (lawyer) and ask him/her...

I just found out on the radio the other day that I can download and store as much music as I like, as long as I don't share it with others... But I dunno how the laws are in Germany...

I'm only stationed in Germany. I'm actually from Illinois and we fall under the US laws.

But anyway, I was thinking that if it was legal I could create a webpage with the links and make a script where they have to agree not to download anything (because that is what they are telling me- no downloading). If they say yes they get in. If they say no then they go back to the webpage. The issue with that is that I'm not sure how to go about creating that script. I've seen them when I log onto our network but I have no clue how to create them.

What is the purpose of these servers? If it is just to share files, why don't you just use FTP and username,pwd access?

We can't use FTP on base for security reasons but yes it's just to share media files.

Well you can set up a ShoutCast (http://www.shoutcast.com/download/listener.phtml) server & have people listen to the songs by streaming.

post cancelled so I wouldn't look stupid answering a 3 year old post. lol Where's the delete button?

You cannot electronically share copyright music! Even if it was purchased legally, storing it on a server for others to download (for free) is making a copy and that is illegal.