I am a huge comics fan. I actually use to skip school to read comics. Now golfreisen is my passion and I can get enough of it. I think its the norm these days to get music for free. Just look at youtube.com thats the same thing really as making your own CD.
I know people do it. No one gets caught (there aren't CD and DVD police yet!)and not much harm is done as far as we can see. And I agree with you that if I buy a DVD or CD and it's mine, I should be able to do with it whatever I want to do with it. Who of us old farts doesn't have a cassette tape of our albums? I don't get the laws, but I think I can understand that if I don't own it, then I don't have the right to copy it ever. That's illegal. And don't even get me started on the legality of schools and other groups showing them illegally!
Since we are discussing the legality issue. It is illegal to obtain a CD or DVD without paying royalties right? So explain Garage sales, or libraries having a "Friends of the Library that seel stuff from the library. Books, CDs DVDs, even computer programs. They don't pay a fee to the recording companies. And accepted is not the same thing as allowed. A percentage of any purchase you make covers loss from theft. Is theft allowed? Of course not, but it is an accepted part of having a business. My comment of April 19 was to the fact that the big hubbub was over internet peer to peer trading, which was done from privately owned CDs. If a blank CD costs on average 20 cents, then what am I paying 16 bucks for? Once I own that CD I own everything on it. When I buy a car the auto maker no longer has a claim to it. So if I want to copy a CD and give it to a friend, or my wife to play in her car, that is my own business. If I sell a CD at a garage sale, then that too is my own business.
Missing the point people! You take the CD or DVD home, watch it, then bring it back. It costs you nothing, so it's free. Who said anything about burning them? That is illegal. Libraries frown on that--how is that "accepted?"
Bill Wa, why do you say it's legal to burn library CDs to your hard drive? Unless you are the copyright holder or have explicitly been given permission to do so by the copyright holder, any copying of music files that does not fall under fair use is illegal.
And the Principal of the school is Zippy? Now try this on for size. If you download off the internet for free it's illegal. If you check out a cd from the library and burn it onto your Harddrive it's fine? Gotta love the library.
