What to do with 1,200 CDs I don't need

How can you possibly believe that not being allowed to make multiple copies of their copyrighted work is somehow screwing you??

My understanding of the current law is that I am allowed to make multiple copies of purchased copyrighted material for my own use. If this right is taken away from me via new legislation, then I've been screwed.

I notice that you original argument was against the right to resell the originally purchased album. You've seemed to have shifted to declaring that simply making multiple copies for personal use should also be stopped. Will your next argument creep to prohibiting any copies? The reason I ask this question is because that also appears to be the pattern of the RIAA.

Finally, I'm not talking about what is fair, I'm talking about what is legal.

Zaikeman, the courts have ruled that it is legal to tape off the air for your own use. However, you don't have any right to distribute that copy just as you don't have any right to distribute digital files via the internet, the "new radio."

The good news is, using Highway 61's logic, I figured out a way to sell legal copies. Let's say your business model is you want to profit by $3 for each copy minus the cost of the blank disc.

Open a used cd store. Include a blank cdr along with each used cd you sell . Once you sell it, as a courtesy, make a copy of his cd for him. Then buy back the cd for $7 and let him keep his copy.

oops, I hit the submit button too fast.

I also still don't see any logical or legal reasoning behind the argument that because each is legal on it's own that together they must be legal. You argue that since copying for your own use is legal, and selling a CD is legal, that copying and then selling must be legal.

That line of reasoning just does not hold up. The conclusion that buying/ripping/copying is legal may be valid, but not simply based on those facts. Any position can be justified using false logic.

Dogs are human. Why? Humans are animals and dogs are animals therefore dogs are humans. That's just plain silly.

Would you argue since it is legal to drink and it is also legal to drive that it is therefore legal to drink while driving?

My position that buying/ripping/selling is the same as buying a ripped copy is logical since the result is exactly the same.

Saying they are not because the path to get there differs is not logical.

Herman, your used record store idea is a pretty transparent attempt to circumvent the law. I think you would lose if prosecuted/sued.

We don't have to agree, but I will note that I find it interesting that as the starter of this thread you are now able to so fervently answer your own question. I can only wonder if the original post was a troll in order to afford you a platform to state anti-consumer/pro business positions. If so, you have succeeded. What you've failed to do is to demonstrate the illegality of buying/ripping/selling, IMO. In the U.S.A. something is presumed legal unless specifically defined as illegal. I'm beginning to realize that for some people that's a hard concept to understand.

No, it wasn't a troll. That is what I intended to do until it was clearly pointed out that my intentions were certainly immoral and probably illegal. I agree that the RIAA is out of control but that doesn’t mean that everything they stand for is wrong.

In the U.S.A. something is presumed legal unless specifically defined as illegal.

Not that it has anything to do with this debate but I’m not so sure about that. There is no way to specifically define every illegal act as being so. Unprecedented situations arise everyday and the courts routinely take laws and precedents to determine what is and is not legal.

Using your logic, since there is no specific law banning my store idea, and you believe each act in and of itself is legal; wouldn’t you have to agree that the whole operation is legal?

If it is legal, as you suggest to buy it, take it home, rip a copy to keep, and sell it; it surely would be legal if you took your laptop to the store with you to make the copy instead of going home to do it. Why would it become illegal just because someone else actually made the copy? Does selling it right back without waiting some period of time make it illegal? Do you have to sell it to somebody other than the person who sold it to you?

One local re-seller here has a policy that you can return a CD or record within a few days for any reason and they will buy it back at ½ what you paid. If I take my laptop down there and stay all day making copies as I buy them and sell them right back is a law being broken? I think there is.

I completely agree that the store idea is intended to circumvent the law, but you can’t have it both ways. If my store is illegal then buying/ripping/selling and retaining the copy has to be illegal no matter how it is accomplished.

Your honor, I rest my case.

Along the same lines, I was in Japan recently and noticed there are a lot of pachinko parlors. It’s a gambling machine that is kind of a cross between a slot machine and a pinball machine. They were always very busy and I wondered why these people would put money into them for hours on end if gambling on them was illegal. Turns out that it is illegal for them to pay out money but you can win a prize like a doll or a pack of cigarettes. After they awarded your prize the parlor would then buy it back for the amount of money you would have won. I suppose that the whole enterprise wouldn’t stand up in court but nobody has bothered to prosecute it.