Legal & Ethical Questions in the PC Audio Age

Legally, in the extremely unlikely event a record company came after you, you'd want to be able to prove you 'owned' the cd.

The downside risk here is negligible, but FWIW, having the cd is good proof you own it. Sales receipts and the like *might* also work.

Morally, the one thing you shouldn't do is make a perfect copy of your cd and then sell it or give it away.

I think it's generally held that you're buying a license to use the music contained on a given cd. If you pass that cd onto somebody else, you're passing on the license.

I'm very much on the side of fair use - and opposed to the draconian record company policies that produced DRM, prosecution of customers, etc. - but selling a cd you're keeping as a digital copy is a classic case of having your cake and keeping it too.'

Scott Atkinson
Watertown NY

A couple of responses to a couple of points made.

On the argument that there are more serious problems in the world, so let's not get too worked up about a few cds - agreed, within limits.

To me, the limit is obvious: I either can't or won't do anything about some big moral issues. That doesn't excuse me from small moral issues that come along.

As to why a library can lend out a book or cd: only one person at a time has use of the item, assuming he doesn't make a copy.

The general ethical rule, I think, is - if you're not creating a copy for another party's use, you're ok.

So if I buy a cd and loan it to a friend, I'm fine. If I make a copy first for my own use, I'm not.

Can this get to absurd tiny slices fast? Yep. But just because it can get silly, it doesn't mean you can treat the larger question as unimportant - especially if you're deeply committed to music and musicians.

Finally, a comment: I'm no lawyer, but in my view the act we're talking about here is *not* stealing.

It's more in the realm of violating a civil contract between you and the record company, and should be settled without the moral panic the record companies attach to this issue.

In my opinion, this has never *really* been about casual copying. I believe the record companies' real point was to use the moral panic to impose air-tight use restrictions, so that you had to pay a fee to listen to the item at home, another one to listen in your car, a third for use on your iPod, etc.

If you think this is silly, consider what's going on in the motion picture industry, where you now get 'free' copies of the movie - along with the dvd - to play on your portable player. In fact, the newly reissued dvds with the digital copies are slightly more expensive than the copies they replace.

So to bring it all back around - the reason to not sell the cds you've made copies of is to be ethically ok yourself, and not because you like/respect/have sympathy for the majority of the audio industry.

Scott A.

"Scott - Even if only one person reads book from library it lowers the sales - without libraries people would buy more books. Frank explained to me that library has permission and pays fee to do it."

Even though it seems like common sense, I'm not sure.

For the people who go to the library because they can't afford to buy books, the above is trivially untrue. They won't buy if the price is other than free.

At the other end, people who deeply love reading and books and who do have money are likely not buying fewer books because of the library. It seems to me they might buy different, (ie - what the library doesn't have) and *more,* because whatever they get from the library spurs their interest in acquiring more.

The only class of readers who might buy fewer books would be casual readers who want the new, hot novel and, once they've read it, are done for the time being.

It's the reason I tend not to worry about, or feel guilty about, making mix cds for friends.

If they don't know an artist, there's no way for it to be a lost sale. Even though a mix cd given to a friend clearly violates copyright, it's all upside for the record companies - because potential customers are being created.

s.

"I must admit that I have ripped CD's borrowed from friends (not many), and whilst it is probably poor rationalization, the truth is they are CD's I would NOT have bought myself anyway, so I'm not actually robbing the artist at all. I may even be helping the artist, because if I decide I like the artist, I may begin buying their other CD's and telling friends about them, which I wouldn't have done without the "free sample" as it were."

This is why it's best to keep the moral panic down to a dull roar, and to view what you do as a civil dispute, not a crime.

You're obviously violating copyright. It's far less obvious that you're doing any harm, and may - in fact - be helping the record company, especially if you're a heavy consumer of music.

Scott A.

Again, it's not a big deal in the scheme of things.

But that's what we're talking about in this thread, and besides, to sorta quote Springsteen, 'from small things, big things come.'