2015 Mississippi Code
Title 97 - CRIMES
Chapter 23 - OFFENSES AFFECTING TRADE, BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONS
§ 97-23-87 - Unauthorized copying or sale of recordings

(1) For purposes of this section, the following words shall have the meaning ascribed herein, unless the context requires otherwise:

(a) "Person" means any individual, partnership, corporation, association or any communications media, including radio or television, broadcasters or licensees, newspapers, magazines, or other publications or media which offer facilities for the purposes stated herein.

(b) "Owner" means the person who owns, or who has the license in the United States to produce or to distribute to the public copies of the original fixation of sounds or pictures embodied in, the master phonograph record, master disc, master tape, master videocassette, master film or other device used for reproducing recorded sounds or images on phonograph records, discs, tapes, films or other articles on which sound or images are recorded, and from which the transferred recorded sounds or images are directly or indirectly derived.

(2) (a) Any person who shall knowingly and willfully transfer or cause to be transferred, without the consent of the owner, any sounds or images recorded on phonograph record, disc, wire, tape, videocassette, film, or other article or device on which sounds or images are recorded with intent to sell, rent for a fee, or cause to be sold, or rented for a fee or for any financial gain the article on which such sounds or images are transferred, shall be guilty of a felony and, upon conviction of a first violation of this subsection, shall be fined not more than Twenty-five Thousand Dollars ($ 25,000.00) or be imprisoned in the State Penitentiary for not more than five (5) years, or both. Any person who shall be convicted of a second or subsequent violation of this subsection shall be fined not more than One Hundred Thousand Dollars ($ 100,000.00) or be imprisoned not more than ten (10) years, or both.

(b) Any person who records, masters or causes to be recorded or mastered on any recorded article or device with the intent to sell, market or lease for commercial advantage or private financial gain, the sounds or images of a live performance, with the knowledge that the sounds or images so recorded have been recorded or mastered without the consent of the owner of the sounds of the live performance, is guilty of a felony, and upon conviction thereof, shall be subject to fine and imprisonment as provided for the first and subsequent convictions of violations of subsection (2)(a). In the absence of a written agreement or operation of law to the contrary, the performer or performers of the sounds of a live performance shall be presumed to own the right to record or master those sounds. Such performers shall also be deemed, in absence of such agreement or operation of law, to own the right to display and distribute their own personal images.

(c) Each and every individual and separate manufacture of a recorded device as described in this subsection shall constitute a separate offense of this subsection.

(3) (a) It is unlawful for any person to:

(i) Advertise, offer for sale or sell any such article or device described in subsection (2)(a) of this section with the knowledge that the sounds or images thereon have been transferred without the consent of the owner;

(ii) Offer or make available for a fee, rental or any other form of compensation, directly or indirectly, any equipment or machinery with the knowledge that it will be used by another to reproduce, without the consent of the owner, any phonograph record, disc, wire, tape, videocassette, film or other article on which sounds or images have been transferred; or

(iii) Possess with intent to sell, to make available for a fee, rental or other form of compensation, or for the purpose of obtaining any form of compensation through the use of any article or device described in subsection (2) (a), with the knowledge that the sounds or images thereon have been transferred without the consent of the owner.

Any person convicted of a first violation of this subsection shall be guilty of a felony and fined not more than Five Thousand Dollars ($ 5,000.00) or imprisoned in the State Penitentiary for not more than three (3) years, or both. Any person convicted of a second or subsequent violation of this subsection shall be guilty of a felony and fined not more than Fifty Thousand Dollars ($ 50,000.00) or imprisoned in the State Penitentiary for not more than seven (7) years, or both.

(b) Each and every individual advertisement, offer for sale, sale, rental or possession of such recorded devices or offer or making available of equipment or machinery in violation of the provisions of this subsection shall constitute a separate offense.

(4) The provisions of this subsection shall not apply to reproduction of sounds or images made in the home for private use with no purpose of otherwise capitalizing commercially on such reproduction.