I've recently started buying music again and have found that music albums to download in MP3 format can be expensive on Amazon. Not expensive like half-titanium, half-plastic bike frame expensive, but it's usually cheaper to simply buy the CDs secondhand on eBay, rip them and then give the CDs to a charity shop up the road.

It appears that doing it this way: Amazon loses, the artist loses, but the eBay seller, me, and the charity benefit. Yeah…?

So, who's breaking the law: the eBay seller, me, or the lovely, but slightly mad, elderly lady in the Heart Foundation shop?

You could always hire CDs from a library, probably scratched to blazes, but useable though.

Nobody will ever know unless you confess in floods of tears at the local cop shop.

Hire CDs? From the library you say? Hmmm… and this would require, leaving, the, house… right?

So, who's breaking the law: the eBay seller, me, or the lovely, but slightly mad, elderly lady in the Heart Foundation shop?

You, unless you delete the music when you give the CD away. HTH

OK then go to one of those filehosting search sites and download to your hearts content. You could find a free WiFi area if you don't want to be traced but that would mean leaving the house of course…..

My understanding was that you could copy music that you owned legitimately as a back up but that you have to remain in the same format. Anything else is naughty.

torrent FFS – no need to leave the house and as legal as what you currently do.

It also annoy Mandy so another plus

I think in the UK you are not allowed to copy for any reason. The 'fair use' provision that people often quote is valid in the US, but not here. No-one is likely to get prosecuted for it mind, unless they start selling bootleg copies…

I think copying CDs in the UK, even for personal use/backup whether to MP3 or tape or whatever is indeed illegal although there are moves afoot to change that.

Is it something that has ever been policed or prosecuted? I very much doubt that.

I'm not sure if its the same with music, but with film if you buy a DVD strictly speaking you are buying a license to view that film in your home (but not screen publically/rent/broadcast/distribute – those are different licenses and you can't buy them for £3.99 in Fopp), and not the piece of media – the disk itself. Notionally if you scratch/loose/break the DVD you can ask for another copy of the disk, as you still own that licence to view the film.

Where that seems to fall apart is if you sell/pass the disk on, does the license pass on with the disk?

I think in the situation you suggest – buying second hand CDs, ripping them and giving them away- there isn't a point where the CD publisher could benefit at any point in that process, as if you buy second hand then they are not involved anyway so what happens next – eat them, stick them up your arse, launch them into space is irrelevent. What you could perhaps do though if you felt benevolent, whether you buy new or second hand is simply retain the original CD after you've ripped it rather than put it back into circulation, even through a charity shop.

That would still technically be illegal, but within the spirit of the way in which the law is expected to change (ie it would be fair). Ripping for yourself, but passing the original media on, would still be 'sharing' in the sense that the law is currently being tightened (ie it would be unfair), but still unpolicable I would imagine and unlikely to ever be policed.

When you rip a cd into something like iTunes, AFAIK, nobody really cares about the technicality of the law. The music has been bought and paid for, all copyright has been observed, so what you do with the media for your own use, is up to you. If you want to then pass on the cd's then that's up to you. Nobody has been prosecuted for it, or is ever likely too, because the largest sellers of CD's happen to be part of Sony, who also sell media players, so who are they gonna sue? Themselves? This was why iTunes had DRM on music bought through it originally, but doesn't since last April. Go ahead, nobody cares. What they do care about, is P2P file sharing of music through Torrent sites, and they can and will sue your sorry ass if you get caught. Otherwise, Keep Calm And Carry On.

legalsounds.com 🙂