No and NO. As long as that CD is in existence the rights go along with that CD the rights for were paid for at the time of purchase. If you were selling copies of that CD you would have a problem.

how about this - our local library has a pretty good collection of CD's that i will browse through from time to time. i usually take home a half dozen and rip them into mp3's and load them all in my nomad jukebox. that way i'm assured of the quality of the mp3's and i don't get the incomplete songs that used to abound on napster. i return them the following day to the librarian's confusion ("done listening to all of them already?").

is there any copyright infringement in this case? i equate it to borrowing black vinyl records and transcribing to tape which nobody every raised any eyebrows about...

Well, in a roundabout way. I aked Mikemover, who wrote that he used cd burning to make copies of his cd's in case htey were lost or stolen. I asked him if they were in fact lost or stolen, did he make payment to the record label because there were now two copies out where only one had been paid for? He didn't answer. I know this is all so stupid. It is so stupid because RIAA is trying to enforce a stupid licensing program that depends on old technology where it was hard to make copies. It is now easy and unfortunately, a large segment of our population is not consientious enough to honor this honor system. As I said before, it's not right it just is.

Why would I pay again for something that was stolen from me, unless I was buying another copy? It's the THIEF'S fault that it's stolen, not mine. That's a ridiculous question. If your car was stolen, would you call up Mercedes and offer them more money, even though it will not get you another car like the one you had?

So because it's EASIER to steal, we should just deal with it? Another ridiculous self-serving statement.

Mike

Thread cleaned up.

Of course not!! That's because MB develops an idea and sells it,ONCE. It took the music industry to come up with the idea of selling the same thing over and over again, and then gripe when people get around it.
As I said before, I am not a downloader, I am just making an observation from my point of view which is what this forum is about.
mikemover, just take a walk through Walmart and look at the throngs of the great unwashed and tell me that those people, the cd buying public, won't copy music for free rather than pay for it now that Kazaa is legal.

I hope you guys kissed and made up.

Let's take another example. Suppose I bought the vinyl version of an album years ago. Take Nazareth's Greatest Hits. I bought this thing when it was new. It was junk. (Not the music!) The record was warped and I could only play a few of the songs. I returned the record and got a new one, but it wasn't much better.

That record was paid for, in full, but I never received all the music supposedly bought. Years later, I took out my Narareth album, and realized how much I would enjoy having all the songs on it.

So, I downloaded the album off Win MX. Am I a criminal? I already paid the artist for the music. They got their royalty. Even if the record was not defective, am I stealing when downloading a copy?

Food for thought...

Separate post...

I think the problem is that the music buying public has been feeling a little hosed lately. I know that the last few CD's I bought, I bought only after listening to most of the tracks on-line. I have become gun-shy about shelling out $20 to get an album with one song that's well written and strongly performed, and eleven filler tracks of obviously second and third rate crap. Lots of performers have gone this route.

People have cottoned on to this strategy, and have decided to simply find the one song on-line, and not get ripped off for the rest of the CD, which is more often than not, lame.

Now, this does not justify the theft from the artist, but it leads to the problem, and once identified, we can start working toward a solution. We need to be able to buy songs one at a time.

Suppose you could go into a music store and instead of buying individual artist's CD's, you could make your own compilation CD with tracks that you wanted. Say for $0.50-$1.00 a song. I could pay at the store, and not risk on-line buying (though that makes sense too) and have a finsished CD to take home. Do I think this would work? Maybe. The main problem would be that a musician could sell their music directly to the store, or to the consumer on-line, and cut out Sony. How mush of that $20 CD does the artist typically make? I have read it is often less than $1.00!! The other $19.00 goes to the record company and the music store, among others.

We are at a crossroads. Consumers want good value for their dollar, and are tired of being charged for a crappy product they never asked for to get the one they really wanted. Artists are at the point where they might be able to cut free of giant music companies and reach their audience directly, and maybe even make more money for their efforts. Record companies want to un-ring the bell and return to pre-Internet days where they were in complete control. No one seems headed in the same direction, yet.

Does the RIAA think they'll make serious inroads suing the fans? Stop dealing with the symptom, and solve the problem.

We didn't kiss: We made out! lol I kid I kid...

Right on Blackmercedes!!!!
I asked mikemover how much he was paid for his cd's and got no answer. That means very little. But he is part of the music world and doesn't want to rock the boat(my opinion). So he defends the indefensable. You are definatly right when you say the music industry wants to return to the pre internet days, just like the horse drawn wagon manufacturer wanted to do when they saw what Henry Ford was working on.

(the thread was eliminated)
I am new to this. I suppose the moderator or mikemover knows why it was closed. Whats up?

I'm a bit confused...

Is this not the market determining the course of the industry?

I thought that libertarians are for such things - ie no government regulations, let the "market sort it out."

blackmercedes
 

Can't argue with that at all. I listen to a lot of Blues so I buy a lot of "Best of's". Even the greats like Hooker, Thornton, King and Waters had a few clinkers in their albums. The only contemporary album I have bought in the last few years was Keyes Songs in A minor because it has about six songs that are good.

By the way, why is downloading stealing anyway, I thought it was sharing? If I share something with someone else, is that a crime? [/B][/QUOTE]


LONG NOTE! Sorry.


I think the argument stems from the concept of intellectual property rights. Copywrite law was written to protect the income of writers. The word "copywrite" refers to who owns the rights to the written material. Before copywrite laws, authors were ripped days after a first edition printing and got no value from ripped material. Authors sought protection through law and copywriting was born.

In the USA, the constitution allows congress to set terms of copywrites and patents. Over the centuries the length of time has been extended and recently the entertainment industry has gotten Congress to extend it well beyond the lifetime of the artist.

Music is granted the same protection, it is copywrited. When you legitimately buy music, a portion of the sale price is remitted to whomever owns the rights to the music (this includes music at live performances). At the time of acquistition you have certain limited rights among which are that you *may* sell or transfer that original item to anybody else. However, you *may not* sell or transfer any copies of it to anybody else. You may make as many copies as you wish of the music. Making copies and distributing them, such that the receiver does not compensate the rights holder, is stealing money from the folks who own the copywrite. That is the law.

The law is abundantly clear, its legitimacy settled many generations ago. The argument about mp3's is confused by the ease of copying, not by the clarity of the law. Thus, you as a user of the music are burdened with ethical decisions. The law is clear, you must decide whether you wish to follow the law.

No matter how we try so desparately to avoid the label, anybody who illegally deprives a rightful owner of the value of his property is a thief.

If you rip copywrited material for others or accept it from others without paying a royalty, you are a thief.

Truth hurts.