music for my ipod

How is it illegal if I buy a cd...rip it into my PC..then take my favorite tracks and burn them to a 'mix' cd? As long as I don't sell those homemade cd's.

Look,this whole music/file sharing/cd burning/etc thing is still new and the music industry has not adjusted to the technology and thus you get a lot of confusion over what is (or should be) legal or not.

You wouldn't think it would be so horrible to borrow a freinds cd and burn a copy for yourself. But it is.

You can download music from Kazaa if you want and it's very unlikely you would get sued. Just dont share or distribute any music. But realize there is some risk. It's your call.

CD burners are intended for you to make copies (back-up,etc) of stuff you own or for burning data...I keep all of my digital pictures of trips,etc on a cdr for back up or for taking to walmart ot get printed...couldn't t do that w.o a cd burner.

Now,yes people do use cd burners for illegal things such as making copies of thier friends cd's or for making copies and selling the copies of cd's.

file sharing and cd burning have legitament uses.

Still...people abuse those things and use for illegal things as well.

Some honestly don't realize what they are doing is bad..others don't care either way.

To answer ?.

There is no difference...whether you fileshare copyrighted material or make copies on your cd-rw drive for reasons other than personal (i.e. selling cd's) it is against the law.

It makes no difference if the songs are on your ipod or cd..as long as you paid for them.
Stolen music is stolen music re; of where/how you listen to it.

i know like a thousand people who make their own cd's with a cd burner and none of them get sued

The people being sued are the ones who SHARE/UPLOAD/DISTRIBUTE the copyrighted music to others.

If I put a song on kazza and you download it form me...they will sue ME for distributing songs I don't own.

The people being sued are ones who had 1000+ songs in thier SHARE folder.

If they burn CDs which belong to them, that's perfectly legal. If they burn CDs which they have bought second hand, that's legal. If they burn CDs from CDs which they have borrowed from friends that's illegal, like home taping, but the music industry effectively ignore it, because it's small scale, and costs them relatively few sales. How many friends borrow and burn one CD from 'Charley', on average? One? Two? Even five? It's small scale.

If they burn CDs from downloaded music, then that is illegal and the music industry are very concerned about it, because Charley's one CD can be copied and distributed hundreds or even thousands of times.

The music industry will lose thousands of dollars of revenue - which might be money which would otherwise be invested in new artists, or in releasing some marginal artist's back catalogue.

There is no difference, legally, between whether you download music and burn it to CD, or whether you download music to put on your iPod.

the guys that are sueing can only catch you if your sharing, but if you have no music in your shared folder, ie only download, they can't catch you, right?

You can get caught downloading but why would they sue a guy for downloading a song vs. a guy who is sharing 2000 songs? They want to nab the biggest offfenders and hope the casual 'thief' will get the hint.

I'm not gonna tell anybody to or not to download. That is your choice alone.
You have to weigh how you feel about the issue..if it worth the risk...

I mean..this is not a black and white issue.

I would say 75% of the downloading I did was of songs that are not available at walmart.

I'm speaking of live versions that fans have made (bootlegs) b-sides that were maybe released on a cassette single 15 years ago and are not easily found today...alternate versions that artists sometimes do but are not an 'official' release.

Is it stealing if you download a song that does not exist as a tangible product (i.e. on a cd bought in a store)?

JP_in_GB:

In your case I don't think it would be stealing if there was no contracts or copyright put in place at the time of a live recording, then therefore nobody officially owns it.

Yeah it is stealing. And I admit I do it...but only to check an artist out or download one song if I only like one song from that artist. Its not like I have thousands of MP3s anyway, and I usually delete them once they are on my iPOD, or when I've brought the CD if I like the artist.

But weighing up the possibilities of getting found out and sued is very slim, when you look at the amount of Kazaa users and how many share a lot of MP3s. And they are gonna target American users first, and I am not on a large ISP, then I think the probability of getting caught are very slim.

I wouldn't advice you to download whole albums from Kazaa because it is illegal and immoral. You can't just walk into a CD shop and grab a CD without paying. And you couldn't go and copy the exact design of a BMW because BMW would come and get you for infringement of copyright, so copying music shouldn't be any different, its just much easier to do.

But its your choice. However, the more and more stuff you download and start to share the the probability of getting caught is going up. Last time I checked its about ?2000 for every MP3 found on your computer.

Originally posted by loGan
I disagree with this and say DO DOWNLOAD, it isn't stealing. It is copyright infringement on a small scale and ultimately it will benefit those in the industry that deserve the money as opposed to the those in the industry whose only concern is money.

Ultimately this digital revolution is being forced on the industry because those in power were too dumb and too greedy to see it coming. Without the threat of file sharing they would quite happily be sitting back milking their cash cow. Ultimately the threat of file sharing and the new associated technologies being developed on the back of it will shift the balance of power back into the hands of the artists themselves, will reduce costs considerably and the only losers will be the RIAA themselves.

There are a large number of artists who would agree with you and are hoping the RIAA will just fade into oblivion.
In my opinion digital music could possibly shift the profits where they belong, into the hands of the artists who created the music, instead of the pockets of the greedy SOB's that have been practically stealing from the fans ($20+ CD's anyone?) for years.

I hope in the end the age of digital music allows more artists to get their music played and heard and more of their well deserved money into their own back accounts.