This one has been bugging me for a while.... Why is it illegal to share music for free over the net, yet it is legal to make money by selling a c.d on eBay?

I mean i buy a c.d, rip it to my computer then send someone a couple of tracks over the net for non profit which is "bad", but it's fine to SELL an old c.d to make money out of it?

very true, the thing that gets me is that, you can make a copy for a friend on a cd or a tape and thats ok, there is no diference between that and sharing files on line!

Actually it's not ok to make a copy of a CD for a friend and it is the same as file sharing.
It's just that you'll never ever get done for it.

It is legal to sell a CD that you no longer need or want.

Ha I like this. Good point!

I think it's maybe because when you sell your old CD then you no longer have the item in your position, it's a transfer of property. Yeh realistically if the CD was any good it was probably ripped to your hard drive before it went but "officially" you've given up your ownership of the CD and it's content.

Reckon it's like in Art, a master artist is not allowed to paint perfect replicas of the Mona Lisa (unless a company like Ikea buys the rights to manufacture some £20 A4 plastic canvas versions of any renowned works) but if the dude actually owned the real thing then he is permitted to sell it on for whatever price he chooses.

The music industry could stop piracy tomorrow by releasing the "CD 2.0" that plays on every CD player but can only rip ".cd2" files to the computer which will only play only on the PC/MAC they were ripped to and can't be burnt, uploaded, transferred etc.

BUT I guess they haven't worked out a way of doin it yet without alienating 99% of consumers.

Nice analogy with reproducing art there Marco!

Actually, the record companies moving forward with the original CD format is partly why things are out of control now - they truly believed that it was impossible to copy, then next thing you know there are CD-ROM drives in every computer and blank CDs cost next to nothing.

And yes, as mentioned above, you are technically not allowed to copy a CD that you own - it's part of the standard "no unauthorised performance / reproduction...[etc]..." clause that is noted on each manufactured CD/inlay.

As to why selling CDs on Ebay is not frowned upon at all, I'm not too sure! I'd have to brush up on my copyright law articles / blogs to come up with a clear and correct sentence to reply here. Maybe in the morning!

Lee.

Copyright law is such a grey area...also when i put a c.d into my cd rom drive and Itunes asks me if i want to import it and then transfer it to my Ipod, surely that's illegal?....According to the c.d inlay i can't do that because it's making a COPY of the song onto my hard-drive?

technological advances mean that the music industry (not the majors - everyone that makes music) is in a period of flux. It is a time for the re-alignment and re-appraisal of the concept of "payment" for music.

The only advantage that the majors had over the independents in the past was distribution. With the distribution of music electronically this has been erroded, the only advantage the majors have is money for promotion/advertising.

I firmly believe that because any attempt at digital rights management will be compromised almost before it's introduced the sensible approach is to allow free distribution of music and find alternative revenue streams from the product. Advertising being just one.

As an aside: one thing that has always bugged me is when you buy music what are you buying? Are you are buying the right to listen to the music or the fomat that the music is stored upon? If you are buying the right to listen to the music when a new format is introduced..(I probably have over 100 albums on vinyl and CD...and probably soon download)..surely I have already paid to listen to the music so why should I pay again! :o)

Ok. Firstly as to why its not frowned upon to sell CD's on ebay/carboot sale etc. is that when you buy the CD your not buying the intelectual property, your purchasing a physical item which you have every right to sell on at a profit or a loss or whatever. The fact that its a CD has little or nothing to do with it as far as the manufacturers are concerned, if you "choose" to break the law by copying it before selling on thats got nothing to do with them, and they have almost no way of policing that behaviour.

As it regards copying CD's (drbob) onto your itunes its a grey area but as long as your using that CD for your own personal use, not for profit and not for distribution its ok to copy it onto your itunes or whatever. However its really not ok to then lend the CD to someone else (or sell it) without first removing/destroying the copy you made. If you can produce the CD(or whatever) you copyed the music from and its in your posession then its pretty much ok.

While copying music for a friend is illegal, you can "lend" music (in whatever format) to a friend as long as the intent is to give that music back to the origonal owner. where this gets fuzzy is most obviouse with P2P servers and copy'd CD's, where you can reasonably argue no profit will be made and the intent is to "lend" not give the item away with no intent of return. Clearly thats not why people use those methods at all, and this is where the industry becomes concerned, is that people use it as an alternative to paying for music and they tend to have a strong conviction that they have a right to DL/copy as much music as they like for free, mostly because its so damn easy (as lee mentions).

Its all a question of intent and practise, in practise people abuse P2P servers and rip a lot of music, they buy CD's, copy them and then give them away or sell them, whatever the intent the result is basicaly stealing from the person who made the music.

I dont personaly know if i mind if say 30 or 40 people were to copy my music and not pay me for it, and ive giged a lot in places where i wasnt payed, people get all misty eyed about the idea of the "freedom of art" and man's god given right to listen to what he pleases if he can get hold of it himself. I do know that if i found out that 1000 lazy buissnessmen had DL'd my music as part of their 190000 unpayed for songs collection id be pretty upset.

How about this, something i read a few years back in some news letter (cant remember which sorry). If i was a bricklayer and you called me up to come to your house and build a wall in your garden, i make you a really nice wall and it takes me all day then finaly when its done would you coem out and say "hey nice wall, tell you what im not goign to pay you but i'll tell all my friends what a good job you've done, and maybe they'll give you some work. deal?" What if that wall was a CD. what if you could copy that wall hundreds of times, but it just so happened everyone liked that wall so much they all wanted it, but they could copy it for free so they did. Is that really ok?

A lot of things that are techincally illegal are unenforcable, or are generalities of intent and result, dont question if its legal to copy your music collection to your itunes, no one going to come down hard on you as long as you can produce the CD it was copied from.

Anyway looks ive gotten into a bit of a ranting tangent now so i'll zip it.