Current trend: selling original CDs but keeping the mp3s

[Teasing the Korean]

You're allowed a copy of something you own for personal use. Once you no longer own the original, you're no longer allowed the copy.

I understand the concept, but where exactly is this specified? Is there any precedent of someone getting busted for keeping a cd-r of something they unloaded??

What if the original got scratched and I pitched it? I have to throw away the backup too? What's the sense in backing it up?

Edited February 14, 2008 by Teasing the Korean

[Aggie87]

An mp3 of a CD that you sold is an illegal copy, period.

Where have you heard this? Granted, the RIAA will try anything if the idea pops into their heads.

AFAIK, making a copy of something you legally own is your right if it's for your own use. If you try to sell the original later, that's your business.

Is there a legal precedent I'm not aware of?

I believe the right to make/possess digitial copies of a recording transfers with the CD.

Otherwise, in theory you could sell me a cd, i could burn a copy of it for myself, sell the cd back to you for the same price, and yet I now have a "legal" set of MP3's, and that's clearly not the case.

[7/4]

You're allowed a copy of something you own for personal use. Once you no longer own the original, you're no longer allowed the copy.

bingo.

[Teasing the Korean]

If you made a legal copy when you owned it legally, I see no conflict.

Again - aside from principle - is anyone aware of a legal case along these lines?

[Aggie87]

If you no longer possess something legally, how can you own a copy of it legally?

[7/4]

If you no longer possess something legally, how can you own a copy of it legally?

You made a legal copy when you owned it legally.

[A Lark Ascending]

This strikes me as one of those situations where the technology is way ahead of the legality. As fast as the record companies try and nail the legality down, they still look up to find technology several streets ahead and have to start all over again.

The only solution is for companies - or individual musicians/bands/collectives - to provide something unique that cannot be quickly replicated.

The moral argument is all well and good but it doesn't stop people (I've got my own share of recordings that are of questionable provenance). But once you start hitting the moral high ground where does it stop? How about the ethics of buying a Mosaic for $120 that you get through once a year at most. How many meals could that buy in Darfur?

I actually find a certain pleasure - I'm not sure why - in buying direct from the source. A musician's site, a small, specialist label. I'll loyally buy direct from, say, the Discipline Global site that handles the King Crimson/Robert Fripp music and feel no desire to locate this music cheaper because buying from there is easy, interesting, full of surprises and I've a feeling that a fair bit of the money is going to the people who deserve it. That's the model that is needed.

Edited February 14, 2008 by Bev Stapleton

[porcy62]

Minority Report

Just to offer a different perspective - I'm not trying to start a fight!

a) I've not bought an LP in about 20 years - I've slowly been either replacing them with CDs or burning them to CD-R (more recently replacing some with downloads). The bulk of my LPs are in the loft where they'll never be played again. I associate vinyl with rice krispies, off centre discs, inner groove distortion, needle jumps etc. Probably a result of only ever having modest playback equipment - but I worshipped the CD from the moment it arrived.

b) Although I've had some downloads from commercial sites that have sounded poor, most I find hard to differentiate from a normal CD. I always burn to CD-R and play that way at present (habit, I suspect...I've not been able to get past the idea of an item with a specific, finite amount of music on it!). I've been perfectly happy with most from e-music. Recent downloads from classical labels like Gimmell (Tallis Scholars), Chandos and, more recently, the new DG site have been marvellous. Now I'm willing to accept that I lack either the discerning ears or the quality of playback equipment to tell the difference - but I'm pretty certain that it's only a matter of time before technology just eliminates any difference there. I'll have no difficulty to switching totally to downloads.

c) I always find the arguments about the packaging interesting, especially when coming from a body of people likely to get dismissive about the general public's addiction to packaging in other areas. I was very attached to the packaging up to a year or so back. E-music weened me off. I like a nice front cover and notes if they are informative (though usually they're waffle!) - a fair few online distributers are getting good at making those available (Gimmell is superb!). In fact, I've gone as far as ditching my jewel cases and general paperwork, keeping CD and main booklet in a PVC folder. Saves acres of shelf space!

I suspect that 5-10 years from now there will be companies running off 'audiophile' pressings of CDs as they do vinyl today. But the future lies in downloads (or whatever comes next!!!!). If I hear something on the radio today I want to buy, it will take me a day or more to get to a shop to buy it; ordering the CD online still imposes a time delay. The ready availability to purchase and be listening in half an hour at most is bound to win over the mass audience (and I'd include many people who enjoy specialist musics in that mass audience).

I loved going out on Saturday afternoons to record shops, browsing, buying an LP or two, gazing at the gatefold. But those days are long gone. I spent 30 years going record shopping nearly every week, often driving to cities 30 miles away for a different experience. In the last year I've gone shopping maybe six or seven times! An enjoyable experience lost...but I've won back so much time, much of which has become listening time!

Having said all that, I've no intention of ripping my existing CDs and then selling them!

Oh, and it's interesting to read the term 'CD quality' as an affirmative. Not too long ago that would have been an oxymoron!

Well posed, though I am not agree with all points.

I have a great TT and a pretty good cd player and I appreciate vinyl's sound much more then cd's sound, and digital sound in general. Occasional pops and clicks don't divert my attention (and pleasure) from the music. It's obvious that a decent cd player costs a fraction of a comparable analog set up, (cartdrige, tonearm, turntable and phono stage).

About downloading I don't do it because recently I realized I have enough music for the rest of my life, so I quit my compulsive record's shopping. I buy very few new music on cd, I prefer to attend at concerts, living in Rome is a plus in this sense. I still buy cds at concerts BTW.

I think that downloading could be another dangerous form of compulsive habit, like eBay and e-commerce in general. When you had to travel in order to buy records, or cds, when you needed space to shelve them, you bought less, when you can do it with a mouse and a credit card from your chair...no way. It's like having a 24 hours pub in your kitchen for an alcoholic.

About packaging and solid things in general, space saving, etc, I agree with you, it's more 'enviromental friendly' and it will be THE future, not that the majors are really caring about rainy forest and gorillas, they are thinking about costs and profits.

Overall I think that I don't really need 800,000 records packed in an hard disk, even if they'd sound like my beloved vinyls. I haven't got time to listen to them in my whole life, but if one feel better "having" (owning) all the music of the world, I believe that this is a pathologic behavior IMHO.

I look at records like books. It takes time to read and understand books, I need the same time for a Coltrane's record.

When I was at college I was really fond of philosophy, so I bought tons of classics like Plato, Kant, Hegel, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, etc. I was thinking that I'll read them in my life. I throw them away when I moved in the new house a couple of years ago, never read.

I am not doing the same mistake with records, (vinyls, cds or files).

Oh, and the term 'CD quality' as an affirmative is still an oxymoron!

[Teasing the Korean]

If you no longer possess something legally, how can you own a copy of it legally?

You can own a copy of it legally if no one ever bothered to pass a law against it.

Is anyone aware of such a law?

Assuming one exists, is anyone aware of a record company pressing charges against someone for this practice?

[7/4]

I actually find a certain pleasure - I'm not sure why - in buying direct from the source.

You explain why right away:

this music cheaper because buying from there is easy, interesting, full of surprises and I've a feeling that a fair bit of the money is going to the people who deserve it.

[A Lark Ascending]

I actually find a certain pleasure - I'm not sure why - in buying direct from the source.

You explain why right away:

this music cheaper because buying from there is easy, interesting, full of surprises and I've a feeling that a fair bit of the money is going to the people who deserve it.

But how often has the money gone to the 'people who deserve it' since the beginning of commercial recording? The idea that 'people today' are accepting immoral practices doesn't work...because we've all been party to that since we bought our first records. This is the way capitalism works.

It'll take more than a change in the record industry to introduce ethical practices.

[A Lark Ascending]

About downloading I don't do it because recently I realized I have enough music for the rest of my life, so I quit my compulsive record's shopping. I buy very few new music on cd, I prefer to attend at concerts, living in Rome is a plus in this sense. I still buy cds at concerts BTW.

I think that downloading could be another dangerous form of compulsive habit, like eBay and e-commerce in general. When you had to travel in order to buy records, or cds, when you needed space to shelve them, you bought less, when you can do it with a mouse and a credit card from your chair...no way. It's like having a 24 hours pub in your kitchen for an alcoholic.

You have a point there - if I never bought another recording I'd have enough to keep me wallowing in pleasure for the rest of my life.

Except...

I got hooked into music by that sense of anticipation for what lay round the corner. I'm still gripped by that, regardless of what I own (clearly marking me as someone very successfully captured by capitalism!).

Lewis Carroll got this perfectly:

I only hope the boat wo'n't tipple over!' she said to herself. `Oh, what a lovely one! Only I couldn't quite reach it.' And it certainly did seem a little provoking (`almost as if it happened on purpose,' she thought) that, though she managed to pick plenty of beautiful rushes as the boat glided by, there was always a more lovely one that she couldn't reach.

`The prettiest are always further!' she said at last with a sigh at the obstinacy of the rushes in growing so far off, as, with flushed cheeks and dripping hair and hands, she scrambled back into her place, and began to arrange her new-found treasures.

What mattered it to her just then that the rushes had begun to fade, and to lose all their scent and beauty, from the very moment that she picked them? Even real scented rushes, you know, last only a very little while -- and these, being dream-rushes, melted away almost like snow, as they lay in heaps at her feet -- but Alice hardly noticed this, there were so many other curious things to think about.

`

[clifford_thornton]

When I was at college I was really fond of philosophy, so I bought tons of classics like Plato, Kant, Hegel, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, etc. I was thinking that I'll read them in my life. I throw them away when I moved in the new house a couple of years ago, never read.

That is so sad. You should've donated to the public library!

[porcy62]

When I was at college I was really fond of philosophy, so I bought tons of classics like Plato, Kant, Hegel, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, etc. I was thinking that I'll read them in my life. I throw them away when I moved in the new house a couple of years ago, never read.

That is so sad. You should've donated to the public library!

I tried, they didn't want them.

[WD45]

My feeling is the same as Bev's. Lately, I've been going thru a serious reconsideration of all the CDs I have to see which ones still trigger something in me; a lot of them I bought because of the mentality of "gotta have 'em all" or "get it now before it goes OOP" or "this is a classic and I should really have it in my collection." In all three cases, those discs rarely if ever get listened to.

Makes me wish I'd discovered Rhapsody a few months ago instead of just now; would've saved me about $300. I like it that for $13 a month, I can listen to any album I want as many times as I want. So now, a whole bunch of albums that were on my wish list have either been taken off (they weren't as good as I thought they would be) or will be listened to at some point, and if I like it then I might go get the CD.

I have no intention of selling my CDs if I ever save them to a hard drive of some sort. Apparently these folks who are doing so have never heard of a hard drive crash. I do have an external hard drive that keeps my source copies for music files I listen to in the car or on the computer at work, but I'm not getting rid of the original CDs.

I am with Big Al on this one -- I am soon to convert my eMusic subscription into a Rhapsody subscription. I like that they have a 25-free plays each month option, but I wish they had an in-between level -- like 100 for $7.99 or something...

[A Lark Ascending]

I actually understand the nostalgia for vinyl - and now CD! But I think the sound differences get overstated.

It's a bit like preferring a classic car over a contemporary Peugeot. The former simply can't compete in performance, environmental friendliness etc. Yet, there's something indefinable about whizzing through the country lanes in the former.

If you've never had or aspired to a classic car then the attraction is meaningless.

[RDK]

Brain teaser #37 (collect them all!):

So I buy a used CD and later resell it. Okay.

So I buy an album from iTunes - legally paying for it - and then burn it to disc for my listening pleasure. Can I later resell this (legally purchased) copy? Does it make a difference if I delete the original iTunes files? Artists have been paid, there's still only one copy out there. Hmmm....

[Neal Pomea]

You would probably have to sell the file with the very computer it is on. If you made another copy it is technically infringement, even if you deleted the original you got from ITunes and only one remains. It's the copying that may be an infringement. The owner doesn't care that you destroyed your copy.

That's my take on it.

[Alexander]

You're allowed a copy of something you own for personal use. Once you no longer own the original, you're no longer allowed the copy.

bingo.

It may be the law, but it's an unenforceable law. Illegal downloading is one thing to try to control, but can you imagine the hassle of trying to make sure that every person who ever owned a CD and ripped it to his or her iPod still has the "hard copy"? What are they going to do? Periodic spot checks? Unlike file sharing, there is NO WAY this could ever come back and bite somebody in the ass.

Does that make it legal or even ethical? No, but it's essentally the RIAA's version of the blue laws. No one is going to make sure that you're not drinking before noon on a Sunday, and no one is going to make sure that you own every MP3 on your computer.

It's not something that I would do. I have also run out and bought hard copies of things I've bought off of emusic and iTunes. I like to have the physical CD or LP. But if these people want to do this, why bitch about it?

[Teasing the Korean]

No one here seems to be aware of any law requiring a consumer to destroy copies after he/she has sold the original.

[Neal Pomea]

No, but we ARE aware that it may be infringement to make even a single copy even for private use. Libraries have exceptions in the U.S., not individuals as far as I know. The Sony v Betamax case argued that consumers could timeshift their viewing of TV broadcasts by using a VCR, but that is different. Making a copy that you can hear on your computer, in your car, then on your IPOD -- those are different facts that have not been tested definitively in court. I believe we are afraid to throw it to our courts. Again my 2 cents on why this is not decided.

[Jim Alfredson]

The comparison to selling LPs after purchasing CDs is not apt because, at least at the time, and still for a lot of people, the CD was an upgrade. It is impossible to define an MP3 stored only on an electronic device as an upgrade from the CD.

Not really. An mp3 is an upgrade from a physical CD in the fact that it is extremely convenient and portable and easily moved from one device to another. That and the fact that you can have thousands of them on a single device (which would take up a lot of physical space to have the same amount of music on CDs) and the argument that MP3s are an upgrade is quite logical.

Like everything, they have their cons, which mainly is sound-quality, but honestly, the general public has never really cared about fidelity.

[Teasing the Korean]

... Making a copy that you can hear on your computer, in your car, then on your IPOD -- those are different facts that have not been tested definitively in court. I believe we are afraid to throw it to our courts...

Well, it would be up to the RIAA or some mega corporation to press charges and even bring it to that level. I'm guessing that the RIAA frowns on this practice but haven't tried anything. That recent case which made the news involved alleged copies that were allegedly placed on a common drive, IIRC.

Edited February 14, 2008 by Teasing the Korean

[Neal Pomea]

It's a political question, who gets a slice of the pie?

What about the makers of devices that contribute to possible infringement? I mean the makers of programs and devices that can burn cds from one's legally obtained copy? They have an economic interest in the right to sell those devices, even if in the process the consumer breaks the law and some artists works are being copied willy nilly.

So to me it comes down to whose interests are being protected. From my vantage point the biggest loser is the public domain. It's hardly even mentioned here, as if the only thing that should be in the public domain is something so old nobody wants it or can make money from it. There's an almost Puritanical attitude arguing that if you want to enjoy something, you had better damn well pay somebody for it, even when it is not morally clear that anyone deserves payment anymore.

[Kyo]

No one here seems to be aware of any law requiring a consumer to destroy copies after he/she has sold the original.

Buying a music CD means buying the rights to use the music contained therein

and not just buying the actual disc. You can make copies of the music to various

formats for your own personal use as long as you own those rights. By selling the

CD, you also sell those rights and every other copy that you keep becomes illegal.

When you buy digital downloads, you only buy the rights to use those files. You

are not allowed to sell those rights or the file. It's all in the iTunes small print.

It's all quite simple really.