Supposing I have a large CD collection which I have uploaded legally to computer as MP3’s for use with a personal music player. Suppose then that my music collection is stolen and as it is uninsured I am unable to immediately replace it, am I legally obliged to wipe the digital copies of my CD’s.
I am only interested in the correct legal course of action not in any ethical discussion of the issue (although if anyone wants to do that they’re quite welcome to)
I suppose I should point out that I am not in the above situation, the idea just occured to me and everyone I’ve asked seem to be about evenly split on the issue, personally I’d assume that you would be supposed to wipe everything.
As you are in the UK the answer is no. You do not even have the right to make copies of the songs you do have. The copyright law in the uk states that the material you buy is licence only for the media you buy it on. If the media is then stolen, that is tough.
In the USA the situation is different.
As I understand it the answer is no. You have bought a licence to that music, so you have the right to those copies. If required you may have to prove that you did actually purchase that material and have not sold it on in anyway.
As I understand it, according the strict letter of the law of the DMCA, circumventing copy protection is illegal. This is why copying of DVD, even if it only for your own personal backup etc. is illegal. You have to crack the CSS in order to do that. I don’t believe there is any need to circumvent copy protection in order to convert an audio CD to mp3s. This seems to be legal. Indeed, the ubiquitous and “approved” program iTunes allows you to do just this almost automatically when you insert a music CD. If you’re original CDs are lost or destroyed, I can’t see any reason you’d be required to destroy the copied material. I know of no law (feel free to suggest one) at the moment that requires you to retain the original backing or receipts for things you own. The burden of proof is on others to show that you illegally obtained the music, not on you to show yourself as the owner. (imagine life if you constantly had to be proving your own innocence?) Besides, the recording industry is much more interested in prosecuting you for illegally providing copyrighted materials rather than simply having it.
As for the mysteriously magical, far-away place you live in, I don’t know how things would be different. However, if what rayh says is accurate, the point is moot since you’ve broken the law simply by creating mp3s from your CD. On the other hand, if that’s allowed, I’d want to see the law that requires you to (continually) prove ownership. That’s essentially what having the original CDs would be doing.
That’s not correct. You don’t have a right to make copies, and you haven’t bought any license to the music. You probably have a fair use right to format-shift the music (making mp3s on your computer).
I’m not sure of the answer to the OP, but since creating the mp3s was legal, I don’t think there’s any law that requires you to destroy them.
For another question: What if you did sell them? With software, you generally agree to a EULA that states that if you sell the software you delete all the copies you have (assuming that the EULA allows you to transfer ownership at all). Is there a similar provision for music? My guess would be that if you were intending to sell them after format shifting, then the format shifting would no longer be considered “fair” use, and that anyone suing you for copyright infringement would have to prove that intent.
I don’t think so. Fair-use has very strict guidelines and legally you cannot make backups. The laws protecting the music industry are very strong. In fact, my representative (the Hon. Howard Berman) is the head of the committee in carge of these laws. He once proposed a law that would allow companies to access your computer without your permission to check for possible copyright infringement. Things ain’t going to change anytime soon.
If you downloaded music from someplace like iTunes or Buy.com, then burned them to CD, you usually have the right to make more than one CD from the music you have on your computer.
If you bought a CD, however, you did not have the right to copy them onto your computer. You probably could be forced to wipe your hard drive even if you did still have the CDs. The copies on your computer are already a copyright violation. Nowhere is there any legal copyright exemption for copying music to your hard drive. However, in the real world, such violations are usually ignored as long as you’re not sharing out the files.
Let’s get one thing straight about copyright law: whether you sell copied material or not is irrelevant (it can be an issue of fair use, but copying MP3s to your computer is not fair use, and it’s not the only factor). Copyright is the right to make copies and if you’re making any copy you need permission from the copyright holder. Doing it for profit is going to make it more likely you get sued for infringement, but doing it at all is a violation.
I retract my statement and resubmit it as “You might have a fair use right to format-shift the music.” I base that possible right on the fact that you do have fair use rights to record things for time-shifting purposes. If we change the hypothetical situation from files on a computer to, say, making the mp3s so that you could put them on a portable player, I think you’d have a good argument for fair use format-shifting. If, after putting the music on an iPod, the cds were stolen (or sold), would you be required to delete the songs on the iPod?
Look at it this way: technically, you still own the CD’s (because property rights don’t end with a criminal act), so if your ownership of them gives you the right to have MP3 copies, then you still retain that right.