Legal & Ethical Questions in the PC Audio Age

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.

People who rent books from library often engage in despicable act of illegal copying pages from the book for their own use (ha ha).

I'm happy you mentioned DVDs. I don't know how much it is right now for new releases, but let say it is $20 but in places like China is $2. It is still profitable, otherwise they wouldn't do it. So they charge us at least 900% higher price or make 900% profit on us. It is only possible when companies are colluding. Further proof of this is zoning code to prevent anybody from China to ship and sell back multi-language DVDs in US. They forced this code (bribing our government) on DVD player makers and most of DVD players in US won't play DVDs from another region. I cannot thing of another reason for this zone code than price fixing. If this is not a proof of their illegal activity (colluding) I don't know what is. And in view of all us being cheated copying DVD for private use is a crime and immoral act?

"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.

Great discussion. I am persuaded that I should box up the ripped CDs and hang onto them -- for forever, I suppose.

I now regret ripping a CD a friend loaned me recently, so I went looking for it online. Appears to be out of print, but I found a bunch of them from Amazon affiliated sellers. When a CD is out of print, I will often buy it used on Amazon. But this time, I bought the one that was identified as "New," because this discussion makes me wonder to what extent I'm being complicit in unethical behavior when I buy a used CD. Depends: some used CDs are ones people no longer wanted. But, increasingly, they will be ones that someone ripped a copy of and then sold.

Drubin - very often used CDs sold by Amazon parties are brand new sometimes with hole punched thru paper booklet or backcover - sometimes even thru plastic of the box (can anybody explain why?). I got that way brand new CDs for a fraction of a price. Try also tower.com - stores went bankrupt but on-line business was sold to somebody and still exists. Their prices are often better then Amazon and delivery is great (free over $20).