Legal & Ethical Questions in the PC Audio Age

"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).

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.

There is a difference though. If you own the original media (even bought second hand) then you have not broken the law. In this case, it is the person who has ripped it (kept a copy) and then sold the original that is breaking the law. I agree there is a concern that you might be complicit but it is hard to be certain. Many of the used or hard to find CD dealers on Amazon sell thousands of CD's a month - to me they look bonafide sellers (like used books) but like you I never checked - great question!

What a fascinating discourse!

To comment on the original question; I keep all my ripped CD's simply because I don't yet have confidence that my computer or backup drive wont fail one day, requiring me to re-rip some or all of my music.

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.