Sorry, I don’t know of a more coherent way to title this.
Anyway, I purchased a music CD because my husband wanted it. This would be unexceptional, except I really, REALLY like one track. I copied it, but there are 2 lines “missing” from the copy. No hesitation or “skip” – they’re just not there.
Basic click on “copy CD” follow the prompts CD copying for dummies, (Windows XP, Roxio CD creator, old Dell PC, Nickelback “Rockstar”, the line about the Pez dispenser & the one after is missing).
Any idea if I screwed up something (and how to do it right), or have I run afoul of copywrite protection? Must I buy another whole damn CD to listen to this one song? Is copying a CD that one purchased actually illegal? Being an uptight fussy type, I won’t make another copy if it’s illegal, but I’ll also whine & bitch about it at every opportunity.
I may well be wrong, but I think you can legally make one copy of a CD you own, for personal use only. Your hubby’s CD might be a grey area but since you were the one that paid for it, you’re probably covered.
I spend a lot of time on fansites for a particular performer. I know some of us automatically burn a copy and then use it for everyday listening, saving the bought copy in near pristine condition for their collection. I run off a tape, since most of the newer releases aren’t available on tape and I prefer my little tape player to my disc player. The tape player has an internal speaker - nice for when I want to listen upstairs at work and don’t want to lug up the big boombox. There’s also the fact that I live in a pretty bad area and if I get mugged for my backpack I’ll only lose a couple of cheaply replaceable tapes, not $20, hard to find, CD’s.
Records are another thing. There’s just no way I can set up a record player at work, so I’ve taped some of my vinyl, especially the albums that aren’t officially available, or impossible to find on CD. It also saves wear on the unreplaceable records.
To quote Kay Kyser: You’re right – that’s wrong. There is no blanket right for the individual user to make any copies of any CD. They own the CD, not the music. Now, if you download the music, you are usually allowed to burn it onto more than one CD, but that’s specifically granted by the license.
Taping, OTOH, is legal; a portion of the cost of the audio tape pays for the rights to do so.
While it may be a copyright violation in the absolute strictest reading of the act, there are exclusions that may apply. The answer, utlimately depends on who you ask, but I’m willing to bet dollars to donuts (mmm…donuts) that making back-ups (i.e. archival copies) for personal and non-commercial use is ok: i.e. (1) immune from prosecution (see the Audio Home Recording Act (“AHRA”)); (2) allowed under the fair use doctrine (see sect. 107 of the Copyright act); (3) and substantiated by case law (Sony Betamax case - time shifting, recording for convenience; RIAA v. Diamond).
There is some/little controversy that ripping songs of the album to your CD is not protected/not allowed/infringing copying. This again comes from super-strict reading of the AHRA. Essentially, the issue is that computers are not considered recording devices for purposes of the act, and CDs were originally not contemplated when the act was created. DAT (digital audio tapes) were what the recorder manufacturers and the RIAA had in mind, however, CDs and computers do fit in the way the act was written. However, logically speaking, how can one copy/record music on the computer if the computer itself isn’t a recording device. Anyway, in the RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia Systems, Inc. (1999), the 9th circuit correctly held that MP3 players are not digital audio recording devices subject to the AHRA. Likewise, extrapolating this decision with the above, tells me that copying songs from CDs to your own CD/whatevermedia is ok. (Also, I saw some site where a law professor and a lawyer from the RIAA agreed).
Thanks for the answers. To condense: it may or may not be illegal to copy a CD onto a CD, probably wouldn’t be prosecuted even if it is, but it is legal to copy a legally purchased CD onto a legally purchased cassette tape.
Since my car has a tape & CD player, that allows me to hear the entire song legally, which solves the problem. Sweet. Thanks again.
If you use a standalone CD recorder, and “music CD-R” media, you can legally make copies of audio CDs under the Audio Home Recording Act. That’s not the exact situation the OP described, but it’s incorrect to claim that copying a CD is always illegal - if you have the right equipment (available at any electronics store), it’s perfectly legal, and it may be legal in other circumstances, as mazinger_z pointed out.
RealityChuck, it bothers me that you’re always so quick to make misleading claims about the legality of copying CDs. I know the AHRA has been pointed out to you before by myself and others.
I wonder if the CD had a seperate session for use in the PC, which may contain a slightly different version of the song. Sometimes the “single” version of a song will cut out things like a long solo, intros, outros, and the like.
I think the Velvet Revolver CD I had was like that. It played normally in a CD player, but in the PC, it had 128kbps .mp3 files.
Unless the CDs are paying royalties to the publishers, it is not legal. Since most users don’t differentiate, and music CD-R’s are hard to find and expensive, most copies are indeed violations.
I’ve never had trouble finding them, although I’ve ever needed to use them since I don’t have a standalone CD recorder… they’re in every electronics store and music store where I’ve ever cared to look. Here are some at Best Buy, 50 for $24.99.
A 50-pack of regular CDs is only $16.99, so the audio discs are a bit more expensive, but obeying the law usually is more expensive and cumbersome than breaking it, at least where copyright is concerned.
Forgive my ignorance, I’m a bit of an idiot on the subject, but are you saying
that if I figure out how to work the built-in CD recorder thingy on the new stereo, and I use a slightly more expensive CD-R instead of the el cheapo blank CD, it would record the whole damn song, and be as legal as the cassette tape? That it’s the “recording it on my computer” part that is causing the problem and the potential legal issues?
Le sigh. Being a fussy cheapskate was easier back in the days of vinyl & cassettes.
I’m not a lawyer, so take anything I say about the law with a grain of salt, but probably yes.
If MC$E is right about the cause of your problem–there are data files on the CD containing slightly altered versions of the songs–then making a copy with your standalone recorder should work fine, since the recorder should read the original CD exactly as a standalone CD player does and ignore whatever data files might be on there.
This story would seem to indicate that EMI have indeed distributed the Nickelback album in question with some sort of copy protection, at least in some markets, so it looks like MC$E has it bang on. I suspect that advising ways around it would be naughty, so I’m not sure what help we can offer here. Sorry.
It must be pretty weak copy protection if the OP was able to get as far as she did with Roxio. If they were using a data session for copy protection, I’d expect the files to be in some kind of DRM wrapper that only allowed them to be played, not burned.
AFAICT, audio CD copy protection has no legal force behind it because it’s not an access control, so as long as the copy is made legally from the unencrypted audio tracks, it shouldn’t matter whether you need to do anything special to get at them. (I doubt that’s necessary, though.)
I was just about to mention this the last time I posted, but I was feeling efficient that day and just commented on what was quoted. Plus, I was also really busy.
The copy protection placed on the CD (if that’s what it really is, which is what I suspect), is placed by the RIAA to prevent piracy, which may sound all fine and good, but it runs afoul of the spirit (if not the letter) of the AHRA, imo, because the piracy protection prevents copying which the AHRA is supposed to allow, and which it compensates the RIAA with royalties. In addition, for the RIAA to cry foul and bring forth suit for circumventing this protection is massively in bad faith (though something I don’t find beneath the RIAA).
It is legal to copy CD’s, etc. for personal use in Canada, because a generic copyright fee is included in the price any time you buy a blank tape/CD/DVD, but the US has different laws.
Yes, because that method is 100% compliant with the AHRA. I, personally, wouldn’t take so harsh a stand as RealityChuck takes. Like I said before, there is the web site, and I actually did try looking for it, that I stumbled upon and it had two lawyers arguing, a Stanford law professor vs. a RIAA lawyer, and neither made the issue of differentiating between CD and CD-R for the copy. I bet it’s because of the decisions interpeting the reading of the Fair Use provisions of the Copyright Act along with the Diamond and Sony (a perrenial case, at that) cases that I cited. The key is non-commercial, personal use (and that means you only).
In the UK, New Zealand, Australia, and probably Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore (hell, throw in the EU, too), there is no legal right at all to make a back up/archival copy (the original legal term of art) of a music CD. This concept, AFAIK, is only allowed in America.
So what happens if you purchase a cd, “back it up” and then sell the cd. Does this mean then that you now have to destroy the copy? Also, how does this apply to dvd’s?
Well then you have just commited a pretty serious crime my friend. Not sure about the consequences for a cd containing music as an example, but you always see the movies with the opening screens showing fines up to 250,000 dollars and up to 5 years in prison.
As long as you made the copy legally under the AHRA, I don’t believe you’d have to destroy the copy. Here’s the relevant section of the AHRA:
No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings.
Now, one might argue that making a backup copy of a CD in order to sell the original disc doesn’t count as “noncommercial use”, even though you aren’t selling the backup or charging for backup services. I think you’d be totally safe if you just gave the original away for free.
The Audio Home Recording Act doesn’t apply to DVDs, so you aren’t protected by it.
You may be able to copy some or all of a DVD as fair use (e.g. for a movie review, or to watch a DVD on your PSP or iPod), but there’s still a big legal issue stopping you from doing so: the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The DMCA makes it illegal to circumvent the DVD’s encryption, even if you’re only doing it to make a perfectly legal copy. So even if you aren’t infringing copyright, you may still be breaking the law in order to make a copy.
