Dedicated CD Burner and Copy Protection

[Jim C]

In additon to copying band CD's, I occasionaly copy store bought CD's for band memebers to learn songs from. No problem on a PC but am curious if a dedicated burner can copy commercial CD's.

[Troph]

Originally Posted by Jim C

In additon to copying band CD's, I occasionaly copy store bought CD's for band memebers to learn songs from. No problem on a PC but am curious if a dedicated burner can copy commercial CD's.

Likely yes, but as this practice rests on dubious legal ground and your scenario doesn't seem to qualify as a "fair use" exception to copyright law, you're not likely to get a lot of replies.

While "teaching" is one of the fair use exceptions, a court of law might reasonably require such an environment to contain a formal instructor, student, and possibly even a classroom. As it doesn't sound like your scenario fits such a definition, you may not be covered. (IANAL, however.)

Loaning your own (legal) copy to someone else (as opposed to making a new copy) is permissible, although the waters are muddied considerably by digital music licenses, which sometimes forbid such transfers. Apple's iTunes license allows some restricted cross-account sharing on 4 additional devices, for instance.

[Jim C]

Thanks although the legalities of the issue are not my question.
After some research I still have no definitive answer as to whether the duplicating machines can copy a store bought CD.

I am told that loaning a CD for non-commercial use without financial gain is a non-issue (not that I care).

My research does indicate that a standard Apple computer using iTunes can copy any audio CD.

[Troph]

Originally Posted by Jim C

After some research I still have no definitive answer as to whether the duplicating machines can copy a store bought CD.

And you won't find a definitive answer, because using these products to duplicate copyrighted CDs is illegal in the vast majority of scenarios. However, it will likely work, because there is technically no copy protection mechanism on Red Book CDs, with a few rare exceptions I point out below.

The closest thing to a device-enforced copyright system was the restriction on standalone CD burners to require the use of blank "Music CD-Rs" (as opposed to cheaper data CD-Rs) which have a flag set to indicate a royalty has been paid to the RIAA under the terms of the 1992 Audio Home Recording Act. But this restriction applies to the blank media, not the digital source. It's possible that duplicators may enforce this requirement if they detect that the source CD is a Red Book format, but I doubt it.

Originally Posted by Jim C

My research does indicate that a standard Apple computer using iTunes can copy any audio CD.

Perhaps not any CD, but most. From 2001 to 2006, a few manufacturers used "copy control" techniques on a select number of released CDs, which used technologies like Cactus Data Shield. Most newer CD/DVD drives have firmware which can successfully interpolate over the bit errors, but until a few years ago, it was hit and miss.

Originally Posted by Jim C

I am told that loaning a CD for non-commercial use without financial gain is a non-issue (not that I care).

The "financial gain" angle is actually not even considered by the court in most music copyright infringement cases these days. Just ask Ms. Thomas-Rasset, who never gained a dime running file sharing software, yet owes $222,000 in damages for sharing 24 specific songs.

I realize you said you don't care, but the only real consideration is whether your copy is covered under the "fair use" exclusions.

[Troph]

And FYI, when my band is learning new material, we usually pony up the $0.99 per track if we want our own copy, or else we just find it available for legit free streaming somewhere (like Youtube). The only case where I'd consider making a copy is if the music were not available in either of the above formats, and this is getting to be a vanishingly small subset anymore.