What's legal when listening to your own music?

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Someone recently told me that it was illegal to rip my own CDs.

i.e. Take a CD that I've bought and transfer the music to my computer/iPod.

To what extent is this true? What can I and can't I do with music I've purchased?

Kap
 
Aslong as you're not redistributing the music, what you're talking about is not illegal. As far as I'm aware you can do pretty much anything you like with you're purchased music, aslong as, once again, you're not redistributing it to other people.
 
mw84 said:
Aslong as you're not redistributing the music, what you're talking about is not illegal. As far as I'm aware you can do pretty much anything you like with you're purchased music, aslong as, once again, you're not redistributing it to other people.
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Sorry, I wasn't clear.

The above is what I believe and what is common sense. However, common sense isn't that common.

What I'm really asking is:

Can anyone point me to an authorative website (or other reference) that says this?

i.e. Something I can show to my friends and say "Here's what the law actually is"

Kap
 
well I don't think so since it is defined by case law and not statutory law. But a good starting point would be the Betamax case which says that it is fair use to time and format shift your data.
 
No, it is not possible. For one thing you do not even state what country you are in. Assuming the U.S., the "right" to copy music is not explicitly given. Nor is it forbidden. Generally it is held that "space shifting" is legal under the fair use statute of U.S. copyright. Case law that upholds this opinion include the Betamax case and the RIAA vs Diamond Multimedia case.

Do a google for "copyright space shifting" and you will get the idea.

Do a google for "copyright fair use" if you want a more in depth explanation. Be warned though, this is not a simple clear cut topic.

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is99/RioSpaceShifter.htm
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=9th&navby=case&no=9856727

Now the problem arises in that this case law, and copyright in general, is misinterpreted in one direction or the other by those wanting to justify their own agenda. Quite often to an extreme. Fair Use in the form of space shifting does not authorize a person to share music. Nor for that matter would it be legal to rip a CD then sell the original, keeping the copy.

Just to reinforce what I have said above. It is generally held that space shifting falls under fair use in the U.S. but this is not as of this moment a right explicitly granted under statute. It is a grey area that is currently heavily leaning in favor of being an allowed practice.
 
ablack6596 said:
However if it is copy protected you're not allowed to break the protection..........
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DMCA and what you are and are not allowed to do is a different discussion however. (Also a grey area, though leaning in the other direction.)

DMCA pertains more to DVDs than CDs.
 
What country are you in? That could have a major impact.

In the States you're limited in some hefty ways - though nothing as severe as preventing transcoding e.g. from CD to AAC or whatever.

In Canada you've got far more freedoms. In other countries, I don't know...
 
in australia, it is in actual fact illegal to rip a CD. however. it is not enforced at all. : )
 
So the question is what should people be careful about when "space shifting" music they have legally obtained without risking a life long sentence in alcatraz?

Would ownership of the original media and being able to prove that the original was not used by another person be sufficient?

Thats the approach I have, copy CDs, vinyls, tapes, and put the original in my attic.
 
I've had a lot of "copy-protected" audio CDs, lately. The copy protection usually only "works" on Windows, i.e. my Macs rip those CDs without the slightest problem. Now did I _circumvent_ the protection scheme?
I think in whatever country you live, you should be fine, right now, to copy those CDs to your Mac for your private use. As long as you don't massively buy CDs, rip them, sell them again and afterwards share the MP3s or M4As. Yes, that's not jurisdiction and just my private opinion, but hey: We ain't got no iTunes Music Store here in Switzerland yet. So my "source" for digital music is - and will be for a while - CDs. And If I buy a CD that I can't even rip on my Mac, I'm either gonna download the songs off of (***whatever network is hip today***) or copy it to my PB the analogue way, creating the MP3s myself.
Because: I buy the music and I _only_ want to listen to it on my iPod. I don't do CDs anymore. I figure that fair use, too.
 
Nothing illegal about ripping CDs, then selling them. It's not like you get full price anyway.

Ok, here's a slight deviation. Is it illegal if a friend lends me a CD and I rip it to my iPod? What if I use a Radio Shark to record an album off the radio, put it on my iPod, burn it to a CD then lend to 8 friends so they can rip it as well?
 
Randman said:
Ok, here's a slight deviation. Is it illegal if a friend lends me a CD and I rip it to my iPod? What if I use a Radio Shark to record an album off the radio, put it on my iPod, burn it to a CD then lend to 8 friends so they can rip it as well?
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Thinking with italian laws
1st) not so sure, but i think that's not so legal... it's the same that copying a cd...
2nd) the radios, here in italy, never play a complete song or album... so you're not reproducing an entire song/album, and I think that's legal... sure, there are ecceptions... i remember a case some years ago when a no-global activists' radio plays entire albums during an anti-copyright campaign in order to allow listeners to rip them...
 
Randman said:
Nothing illegal about ripping CDs, then selling them. It's not like you get full price anyway.
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Nothing directly illegal no. The copy you ripped however is no longer authorized and thus illegal. The space shifted copy is legal based upon the ownership of a legal copy of the media.

Randman said:
Ok, here's a slight deviation. Is it illegal if a friend lends me a CD and I rip it to my iPod?
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Not legal in the United States, no. You are not space shifting something you rightfully own a copy of.

Randman said:
What if I use a Radio Shark to record an album off the radio,
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Not legal in the U.S. but also not enforcable.

Randman said:
put it on my iPod, burn it to a CD then lend to 8 friends so they can rip it as well?
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Definitely and without question not legal in the U.S.. You are extremely unlikely to ever face charges for it, but that does not mean that it is not a copyright violation.
 
The main thing to remember is that law is territorial. I live in the UK, and it is currently illegal to make a back up copy of music that you have bought, without prior permission obtained from the distribution company (not the record label). However, Oxford University are apparently working on a draft to change this and allow individuals to copy but not distribute.

I went to a seminar yesterday about copyright law, and was explicitly told by an "Intellectual Property Lawyer" that under U.S. law, there is a legal provision to protect your investment.... ie. to make a backup copy.

If you want a more authoritative answer, ask the lawyers....
http://www.meritas.org/
 
For discussion sake:

What if I rip a CD, then modify it just slightly. Say I change over 10% of the contents (ie. use an equalizer to cut off sound signals in the 40'000Hz ranger which are bearly audible to human ear). I now have my own "ART". Can I distribute this freely?

If Andy Wahrol can call a box of cookies "HIS" pop art, then can the above be called "my" art to which I own my very own rights and decide to distribute freely?
 
It is a myth that you can alter someone else's work by a given percentage and not infringe their copyright (definitely in the UK, and I'm pretty sure the same applies to the US).

The measure is quality not quantity, so the percentage doesn't matter. If you take someone else's product and alter it, it still remains their intellectual property as long as it is recognizable. As an example, you could very easily get sued for stealing just the guitar rif from a track, even though this may only amount to 5% of the whole thing. Even if you filter it, if it sounds anything like the original you'd be in trouble. (That's why bootleg mixes are often released under false names, or as white labels.)

There's a legal precedent (called "fair dealing" in the UK, and I think "fair use" in the US), that says that you can use PART of somebody else's work for the purposes of critique, review or study. This does not allow you to copy the whole thing (or the major part of it), and it expressly forbids distribution or financial gain.
 
PS. I don't know what happened behind the scene's with Mr. Warhol, perhaps he gave the Campbell Soup Co. a big stack of cash. The law is constantly evolving, and I'm sure if the same thing happened today, they might have something to say about it.

Either way, the music industry in its current state is a very different animal to a soup of cookie company in the sixties.
 
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