What do you think of the ethics of this?

[DigMe]

Originally Posted by Wrong Robot

Or the spirit or the law or some such junk.

I think that's actually a direct quote from a supreme court decision.

brad cook

[bigbeefdog]

Originally Posted by Wrong Robot

It is a slippery slope these days. While some would argue that the .mp3 copies you make are painfully inferior and worthless to listen to, others are totally fine with them. If you look at it from that perspective though(and I have actually heard legal arguments attune to this) Creating a lesser quality copy is actually 'okay' by the word of the law. Or the spirit or the law or some such junk. I can't verify this though, it's just something a teacher of mine mentioned.

Likely comes from the timeline; when open-reel and cassette ("imperfect") copies were the norm, the record companies largely looked the other way - but when digital (supposedly, "perfect") copying became possible, the battles became much more intense....

And when Napster arrived, it was katy-bar-the-door....

[Peter Squire]

I-tunes library takes up quite a bit of room on your hard drive too, so if you decided to delete some files that you rarely listened to, you have then lost them forever.

same as if you get a virus that means you need to re-format the HD - all your music is lost.

i'd keep the originals.

[Basshole]

God will punish you, Brad. You will go to musician's Hell (24 hours a day, Tony Orlando and Dawn plays).

You are allowed to make a legal copy for yourself, but only as the owner of the work. If you sell the work, you transfer all ownership of that work, and you should BY LAW, delete any and all "backup" copies, or pass them on to the new owner.

[canopener]

First things first, how much do you think you'd get back for your CD collection? Legal and ethical issues aside, you'd have to decide whether or not it would be worth the hassle/costs to drive to several used CD places or list them on eBay or however you may decide to get rid of them. My guess is that you'd have to make more than a handful of transactions to sell the bulk of them for various reasons (i.e. scratches, # in stock). I say keep them unless you really don't want them.

[bigbeefdog]

Originally Posted by Basshole

You are allowed to make a legal copy for yourself, but only as the owner of the work. If you sell the work, you transfer all ownership of that work, and you should BY LAW, delete any and all "backup" copies, or pass them on to the new owner.

In it's simple form, that makes so much sense. Trouble is, things are rarely that simple. Situations get complex, and they turn on semantics.

A person can, for example, buy a copyrighted work, make a copy for himself, then loan the original to a friend. He retains ownership, since it's just on "loan"; he never asks for it back, and it is never returned.

It's the same situation, only this time, no laws have been broken.

Or, five friends can go into the music store, pool their money, and buy some CD's. They all claim to be "joint" owners of the CD's, and all make legal copies for themselves.

It's a unique situation. And one without much precedent, because of the unique ability to cheaply clone the product.

[Bob Rogers]

I'm with the "just as wrong as downloading" camp. But if you are like me, I know what got you thinking - You'd like to get back all the shelf space that the CDs take up. Well, ethical considerations aside, the practical considerations mentioned above argue for boxing them up and storing them in the basement. I have my whole collection on iTunes which is on my laptop, iPod, and backed up to an outboard hard drive. It's still nice to have the archive copy. Also, you know that better compression formats have to be right around the corner. At my current stage of life, I seem to have little opportunity for "critical listening," so the better iTune compression format works for me. Maybe later things will change and I'll be more critical about audio quality.

[Bob Rogers]

Originally Posted by DigMe

I think that's actually a direct quote from a supreme court decision.

Scalia or Ginzberg?

[DigMe]

Originally Posted by Bob Rogers

Scalia or Ginzberg?

Robotquist.

brad cook

[DigMe]

Originally Posted by Bob Rogers

storing them in the basement.

We don't really have those in Texas. Maybe up in the panhandle but that's about it.

brad cook

[DigMe]

Thanks for the opinions everyone. You've all made some good points and after pondering those I think the majority decision is probably the correct one. It seems it's illegal and it's probably unethical as well. I'll probably be better off financially anyway by the time I get an iPod or iRiver and won't really need to sell my CDs. Right now I'm trying to pay for some stuff that I'll tell ya'll about in a month or so if it works out and I guess thoughts of obtaining more money are going through my head even for the future. Also my wife would love it if I severely downsized my CD collection...sorry hon...not gonna happen. I just sold a bunch of CDs that I DON'T listen to through secondspin.com and spun.com so that was another part of why it was on my mind. I also just sold my old record collection since I no longer have a record player. I couldn't really transfer the CDs to my computer now even if I wanted to because my HD is maxed out.

brad cook

[Norwegianwood]

Why do you wanna sell them?
Keep the CDs and dump the Ipod.
Nothing beats a good old CD-collection.
Nobody sold their dog when Tamagotchi arrived.
You shouldn't sell your cds either.