POLL: Is burning a CD ethical?

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A week or two ago, I bought a CD, the first one in a while. The band was Further Seems Forever, their not-so-new album, How to Start a Fire. I was listening to it during class a few days ago, and the girl sitting next to me (we'll call her Amy) asked if she could listen to it. I complied, and she listened to it; she said she really liked it. The next day, she told me that she downloaded one song, and that she really liked it. Amy wanted to downloaded the other songs, but for some reason, couldn't.

Today, she asked me if she could borrow my How to Start a Fire CD so she could burn it. I didn't want to be rude, so I let her borrow it for the weekend to burn. However, I have been against burning CDs; every music CD (except for one, which I do not listen to anymore) I own has been legally acquired. I felt like a real hypocrite today; I wasn't able to back up my beliefs.

A few hours and a blank CD later, Amy will have acquired How to Start a Fire without spending a dime (cost for blank CD excluded).

Anyways, later I wondered about it, but couldn't really reach a definite issue on the issue, so naturally, I came to ask you guys (and gals). Is burning a music CD for your own entertainment purposes ethical? Not practical or convenient, but ethical.

Please vote, by the way.

Poll Information
This poll contains 1 question(s). 54 user(s) have voted.
You may not view the results of this poll without voting.

Poll Results: Is burning a CD ethical? (54 votes.)

Is burning a CD ethical? (Choose 1)
* Yes - 52% (28)
* No - 26% (14)
* Undecided - 22% (12)

 

I voted yes because it is legal to download and burn songs for your own use as long as you dont distrbute it. As for burning legit CD's, now it is kind of hard to do that because of copyrights and bars on the CD. You have to have some pretty good software or skills to crack some of the copyrights, if any. The newer copyrights on the CD's can even send a mini-virus through your computer and next time you send an email it will send one to the owner of the rights, publisher or whatever and you can get locked up. Some actually look like they are burning/ripping/copying but the only do half the song. So usually it never works.

 

As long as you don't make money doing I think that downloading and burning stuff is alright.

 

Rephrased: Is stealing ethical?

 

I agree with Laches here. It's just the same as stealing.

 

Newsflash people, these cds cost 50 pence to make. The rest is packaging, and a big cash payout to Tower records, and Britney Spears, or whoever's cd it is. I'll lose no sleep knowing I cheated some hugely rich person out of 10 quid.

 

Ah, the old, 'it's okay to steal something I want but don't need because **** those people I disappove of them - I want, I want, I want' justification. Believe Aristotle first came up with that one

In seriousness, it is cheap to produce cd #2. It is super expensive to produce cd #1 and you are ignoring that. Also, you're not just stealing from some faceless company (without which we'd not have readily accessible music), you're stealing from an artist(s).

I can't stress enough: we're not talking about bread and milk. You don't need a cd.

 

I understand , and your point. Obviously I wouldn't copy the cd of a newbie artist, trying to make it, like a local band or something. They need the money and recognision, but big artists don't.
And when you say "I don't need the cd" I think you are misjudging the impact that music has on our lives. It messes with your emotions. It can incite feelings, calm you down etc. I find music almost as essential as a roof over my head.

 

I agree with jesper. As long as your not selling them to make money. I used to backup my music cds and put them away in a tower, and use the blanks to keep the real cds unstrached and etc. I say personal use is fine, but I have a question myself. What about sharing? Making a copy and giving to a friend (for free), what's your views on that?

 

Borrowing a cd to someone else is even illegal. You may only use it yourself. At least, that is what it says on the copyright note of DVD and videos. I guess the same rules aply for cd's.

Well, actually it isn't allowed to download songs at all. Burning a cd is fine, as long as you own the original, and as long as you use it yourself (I even think it is illegal to make a copy of the cd, so you can put one in your car, and the other one at home, but I'm not sure about this). Downloading songs is always illegal, no matter if you only use them yourself or not.


As for my opinion about it: It's cheaper, and I'm dutch.

 

Burning a CD is illegal. Basically. But you're alowed to make yourself one back-up copy, let's say for use in the car. You're also allowed to lend it to friends, it's your property - public libraries offering CDs aren't acting criminal too. So when the legal texts on the CDs say something different - they are probably wrong.
Taping a song from the radio is legal - as you, in germany, pay fees when you (a) for using a radio/ TV and (b) when you buy a tape.

And now my self-justification When I DL a tv serie from the web which I have seen on tv (and would have been allowed to record), I fail to understand why I shouldn't be allowed to DL it from the web and burn it on CD instead of recording it on tape.

So, I see it like that: DLing single songs is ok, as it wouldn't be criminal to record them from the radio, DLing total albums is a different thing, so is copying CDs or ripping DVDs.

 

Hey Ragusa, did you hear anything about the new German law making it illegal to download music from the web? My mother told me that she had heard it was illegal as of the 1st of August?

 

I bought all my musiccd's legally and am trying to transfer them to an mp3 cd, it's just that the word "ethical" hardly means anything to me

 

Whoa, whoa, wait a minute... almost all artists themselves hate the record companies for screwing them over - those that don't are generally so massive that they have very little to fear, excepting the media and God.

Obviously the public themselves hate having to pay for the music being produced, or else there wouldn't be six million gigabytes (yes, you did read that correctly) of files avaidable to anyone who has Kazaa or a similar program, so it seems that legally the situation might be compared to smoking cannabis in terms of the numbers of people violating the law and also in terms of the fact that many people don't know or care or think about the illegality of what they're doing. Remember, people, that although law in all countries is founded on a certain code of ethics, what is illegal may not necassarily be morally wrong by the standards of today.

 

Daie d'Malkin,
well yes, the new Urheberrechtsgesetz changed a few things in germany from 1.8.2003 on.

In germany software that bypasses or cracks copy-protection is prohibited now, that is bad news for happy CloneCD users in germany It is also prohibited to make legal copies from obviously illegal sources (ah well, it was such a nice argument ) ...

However, the right on a legal copy is left untouched, as well as you're still allowed to lend your CDs to friends.
It is kinda unsatisfying that you can still make a tape copy from a CD you lend in the library or from a friend, but not an mp3 - only because the fee for the artist is included in the tape but not on a HDD or raw CD. But such is life.

Filepiracy can result in the police making a house search, confiscating your holy comp ... ... however, till now only people who operated fileservers got grabbed. Big fishes, rather than the small ones. Nevertheless, it is illegal, and when you get caught painfully expensive.

A while ago a study friend of mine, who's now working as a prosecutor in southern germany, came by for a visit and looked through my CDs, noting that he a week ago had thrown away all the copied CDs he piled up while studying. He meant that he couldn't accuse people in court for doing it while doing it himself.
With a smirk he added, that he isn't responsible in my area and that he was here on a private visit ... well, my sense of humour isn't much better Anyway, it resulted in me making a major cleanup in my room after he left.

 

Luckily I move back to England in 3 weeks, so I (hopefully) won't get busted for my ones.
However, my illegal downloading days seem ti be over-I don't have broadnband in my new house, so it's the straight and narrow for me.

 

Actually while it's being made a big ethical issue, it's more a rutinous concern of law. Legal or not rather than moral or not. See it from the other end: legal notices on software and music claim that you may not copy, lend etc under whatever circumstances. This way you should rather buy another copy from the shop than make a back-up one, especially if one is in the car and the other is in the audioset at the same time. The same way they won't allow you to have one copy of operation system, office software or even a game for more than one computer - ie not two computers in the same room or your desktop PC and laptop. Why? Because the vendor will pile more cash at no additional cost if he makes it illegal for you and he sometimes is powerful enough to succeed in it. Actually they would rather you had to pay monthly fees all the time than pay one time price. Don't tell me that it's free market - the market is no longer free and even if it were free, it wouldn't automatically heal overtime.

What I intended to prove above is that what distributors are trying to achieve is not protection of property, but acquisition of property 'to maximum extend possible under law'. And it's always maximum, never any less than a particular country's law allows.

Consequently, when they have someone put in prison (it's not enough of a generic legal concern to interest the authorities without any external stimulus), it's as a part of their economic war and not seeking justice. The enormous punitive damages awarded in US courts are but a source of profit and have nothing to do with compensation.

Of course, the interests of vendors should be protected, but I see no reason why they should be protected better than any other interests. Note that power, possibility and opportunity aren't reasons. As I stated above, drive for profit will not stop regardless of the level of success, as the object is not to accumulate a specific amount of goods, but to increase the amount already in possession. Thus, it wouldn't be surprising if music or book sellers started to demand periodic subscription fees. So would do any other vendors if it only were in their power. You might say that people will choose other vendors, right, but it will only last so long as the other vendors will. As I claim in previous paragraphs, the market is no longer free, but is regulated by laws (quite often very obscure and certainly not impartial laws) and by powers that be. Believe me or not, powers that be care less about law than a teenager locked in his room with a burner and clean CD supply.

Of course, you may say that I assume ill will on the side of distributors and, ultimately, the sellers of any goods, but in fact I don't. I only treat kind, soft-hearted and considerate fellows as exceptions that they are instead of giving them the benefit of doubt.

I give my vote to yes. With exceptions, but rather yes than no. I don't have anything against people installing one copy of software on all computers they have (having multiple copies of a music CD), I don't have anything against people lending or borrowing whatever (so long as it's not for money, which is a diferent story), I don't mind people connecting computers to the internet via LAN through the computer on which the cable modem is installed and I, finally, don't mind people burning things for their own use so long as they don't make money, don't amass collections and don't give their cash to gangsters.

Isn't it amazing how companies who steal each other's ideas, indulge in industrial espionage, make unlawful backstage deals, don't back off from any monopolistic practices cry unto heaven in immaculate unison over their precious rights infringed by a guy with CD burner? What brought them money and enabled their rise was promptly outlawed so soon as it became possible for them. If they just used legal arguments, but they actually build quite complex ethical constructs to back those up. I don't buy that.

 

The law is not necessarily 'right', and stealing is not necessarily 'wrong'. It all just depends on your personal belief system.
Personally, if a company cannot defend their product then they deserve to have it stolen/ripped. If someone gets caught stealing/ripping a product then they obviously weren't good enough and deserve whatever they get.

 

I found it highly remarkable to hear the well lobbyed outcry in the US when singapore or malaysia (iirc) decreed that it is no longer criminal there to copy software for pupils and students as they saw it that way:
That free access to software guarantees good distribution among pupils and students and that ensures self-education and experience with PCs. And that is good for the greater good: The competitiveness of the country.

They have a point there.