Music, Computers and Copyright

Yesterday while discussing my best available excuses for not meeting the latest revised schedule with a good friend and colleague, I mentioned that I was having a lot of fun with music lately, among other things, checking CDs out of the library and ripping them onto my computer.He was horrified.An amateur musician himself, he's well aware that music piracy takes money out of the pockets of the artists. I'm aware of this, too, but hadn't really given it any thought because I don't steal music.Or do I.This all started when Yahoo Messenger, which we use because it's less confusing for my elderly but otherwise computer-savy mother because it will let you display people's real names. This puts normal names in her friends list like, for example, Bob, Carol, Ted and Alice instead of phoenix71, ebcdic and shoeshine4.Anyway, Yahoo Messenger recently added a radio feature called LaunchCast. I gave it a try, and it was pretty neat. Many of the stations are free, but the stations I wanted to listen to, namely Classical and Oldies, are pay stations, so I plunked down my $35/year and began listening. Each station is not just a single loop of music. If you don't like a song, you can click on the skip button.I really liked the Classical and Folk stations, but the Oldies, while old, were mostly not by anyone I had ever heard of. Their Oldies station had no Beatles, no Rolling Stones, no Dave Clark Five, no Beach Boys, no Four Seasons, no anybody.And after a while I began to notice the repetitiveness of the Classical station, and the fact that they had only symphonic music. They don't have a loop of music that gets repeated ad infinitum (like Netscape Radio, which I tried a couple years ago), but still, the list is not that long. I think the list probably evolves over time, but I haven't listened long enough to be sure. Most likely they're influenced to play songs from CDs that their partners are most interested in selling.So I started looking around the Internet for other radio style products. I found that there are a number of radio stations on the Internet. Some are just broadcast radio stations streaming their programs onto the net, while others are Internet only stations. Some of the latter will display information about the song being played. But I found I couldn't get into them whenever I wanted - there were always only so many streams available.Then it suddenly hit me - I have around 150 CDs. Maybe I could load my CDs onto my computer and play them with one of those newfangled computer jukeboxes. I'd have a lot more CDs if I hadn't at some point noticed how rarely I listened to them. I love to listen to music on the radio, but music on CDs is a drag. There aren't too many groups I want to listen to 50 or 60 consecutive minutes of their music. Buffalo Springfield's side 1 of their 1966 LP is the last one I can think of. The same is also mostly true of Classical music. There are some symphonies I can listen to all the way through, Beethoven's 5th being an example, but when it comes to other forms like piano sonatas and chamber music, I just love them, but please, just 5 minutes worth at a time! After that I'm climbing the walls.So, what should I use to rip my CDs onto my computer. My daughter already uses iTunes and has an iPod, so I downloaded iTunes and started checking it out. I ripped all the songs off a couple CDs and started playing around. The playlist features seemed fine (more than fine, actually, as long as you don't mind layering multiple playlists so that you can AND/OR criteria together).And so I ripped my entire CD collection onto my computer, but only the tracks I like. Suddenly I was having a wonderful time with my music. Like any jukebox, iTunes will shuffle up your playlist to make it just like a radio, but with no commercials and no dogs.Naturally a CD collection as small as mine has a number of significant holes in it, and so I started looking at how I could fill them in. It turns out iTunes has a Music Store. You can buy songs ONE AT A TIME for 99 cents each. Let me repeat that. You can buy songs ONE AT A TIME. You do not have to buy the album to only get that one song that you like. You can buy just that song.I probably purchased around $50 worth of songs before I started wondering, "Just how much do I really own these songs." So I started checking things out, and it turns out that purchased music is protected. It will only play in iTunes or in an iPod. It will not play on RealAudio. It will not play in MusicMatch Jukebox. It will not play on non-iPod MP3 players.Even worse, even though iTunes maintains a list of music you've purchased, if you experience a disk crash and lose all your purchased music, you cannot re-download it. You're just out of luck. This is a big concern to me, because even though I've given myself a budget of only $20 a week for music, in a few years I'll have several thousand dollars worth. Backups have suddenly become very important to me.And what if Apple goes under or for some reason they stop selling and supporting iTunes. What then? Well, I'm sure they'd say something like, "You can still continue to use the last version of iTunes. What's the problem?" Well, the problem is that the last version of iTunes might run on Windows/XP 2006, and it might run on Windows/XP 2008, but at some point it will cease to run on the latest Windows OS. And then what?And thinking in the long term like this is very reasonable - I already do this. I grew up with the Beatles, I bought all their CDs when they re-released the music starting around 1985, and I still listen to them more than 20 years later. If the record labels of the Beatles all go bankrupt, I am still going to be able to play their CDs. But if Apple goes bankrupt, for how long after am I still going to be able to listen to their purchased music?So I felt I had to protect myself. I started going to the library and sifting through the CDs so that I would only buy music that neither I nor the library already had. I started ripping music off the library CDs onto my computer. It seemed a perfectly reasonable thing to do.Until yesterday.I share my friends concern about music theft. My own industry, software, has piracy issues just like the music industry. In general, I'm on their side. But the more I purchase music tied to proprietary players over the Internet, the more I feel exposed and foolish. I don't want to be a music scofflaw, but I don't want to be an idiot, either.Opinions?--Percy

Interesting. I had no idea it was that easy.It is in the music industries interest to promote scarcity. I understand that. But music companies are not alone in wanting to follow their own self-interest, and I'm pretty interested in not throwing my money away.--Percy

Yes, that's primarily the issue. But sending the artists (plural, not singular) money isn't really practical, since I'm up to 86 different artists at this point, and counting.I would gladly send the right industry representative money. All I want is a record someplace that I bought these songs and I have the right to play them for my own personal use. As long as I can play them on my computer and in my stereo and in my car and on my mp3 player and so forth, and as long as a several thousand dollar investment isn't lost because my disk crashes and my CD backups fritz out while the industry says, "Sorry, we know you bought them, thank you very much, and we're sorry for your loss, but you only get one download per purchase." Heck, I'm a sucker, sell me insurance. Jack the price up to $1.09/song and give me permanent download rights.But don't require me to act like a sucker just 'cause I have a conscience, that's just taking advantage. I want to feel good about myself, but there are limits.--Percy

In most of the US, almost all materials in public libraries are free. We live in a small town whose library has no music CDs, but we're also a member of the big city library nearby, and they charge $50/year if you're not a resident, but their music CD collection is very poor.And you're right, none of the money goes to the recording industry, at least not directly.--Percy

But when I rip songs off library CDs, doesn't that make the library an abusive publisher?--Percy

Hmmm. I sort of see the logic, but government regulation has a responsibility to maintain an environment where private enterprise can flourish, which can't happen if people can't make money.Trying to think this through concerning libraries, if I check out a library book, scan it into my computer, then read it at my leasure and never pass the copy to others, this is okay? Of course, I'll probably only read the book once if it's fiction. But what if it's a reference book and I use the information over and over again? That definitely doesn't feel okay.But how is that any different than going to the library, finding a recipe in a cookbook, making a copy of that recipe using one of the copiers in the library provided for the express purpose of making copies of pages from library materials, then enjoying that recipe for the rest of your life.Now let me think about this in the context of CDs. If I check a CD out of the library, rip it onto my computer, then listen to it every so often for the rest of my life, this is okay? It doesn't *feel* okay to me.As I was thinking about this I recalled that commercial radio pays for the music they play, and I pay by listening to the commercials, but as far as TV goes I've already been a scofflaw for several years because I have TiVo and almost never watch commercials. And I hear that some radio manufacturers are considering putting TiVo style functionality into their automobile decks, which is where I usually listen to the radio. This will be a great boon for me, as I usually only realize they've given weather forecast just after they've said, "And that's the weather for today, back to you."--Percy

I'm still wrestling with my conscience about ripping songs off library CDs. I went to Copyright Law of the United States and found the page titled Sound Recordings and Music Videos, but I don't think this is relevant - it seems to apply only to live performances.More relevant is the Digital Audio Recording Devices and Media chapter. It's over 20 pages, but I don't think it applies, either. It seems to deal primarily with payment of royalties to artists, and not with unauthorized recordings.I'm looking for som clear statement in US statutes relevant to copying library CDs for personal use. Here's a clear statement from the RIAA taken from Page not found – Digital Producer Magazine:

[text=black]According to Cary Sherman, the senior executive vice president and general counsel, the RIAA takes the position that any copying of music to CD that you perform on your computer is copyright infringement. Whether the source is digital or analog, whether the disc is a complete copy of a CD, tape, or LP that you own, or whether it is a compilation of songs from various sources that you own, the RIAA considers making such a copy to be a violation of the right of reproduction granted to copyright holders by the Copyright Act of 1976.[/text]

Well, that's sure pretty clear. In the eyes of the RIAA, I was already breaking the law when I copied the CD's from my personal collection onto my computer. If the RIAA's interpretation of the law is correct then I'm just going to ignore it regarding my own CDs.But it's not that simple. Apparently, while I am guilty of copyright infringement when I copy my own CDs, I'm immune from legal action, because the paragraph continues:

[text=black]They also recognize, however, that Section 1008 of the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) of 1992 gives those who perform such copying immunity from copyright infringement actions, provided that the copying is performed on a digital audio copying device as defined by the AHRA The RIAA's ultimate goal is to require CD-R and CD-RW hardware manufacturers to look at the copy-protection bit on an audio disc and refuse to copy if that bit is set to "on."[/text]

So I'm immune from prosecution for my misdeeds, and the RIAA is okay with this because they're working toward getting hardware manufacturers to enforce copyright law by implementing the copy-protection bit. Once that happens they won't have to worry about this immunity anymore, since I won't be able to copy CD's anymore. Not my own or anyone's. At least not new CD's on new hardware.But this doesn't say anything about borrowed library CD's. It doesn't appear to me that the RIAA makes any attempt to distinguish between CD's I own and CD's I borrow. If copyright law also doesn't discriminate between the two, then copying library CD's is no greater crime than copying my own CD's.Still, now that I've had the opportunity to think and reflect, copying library CD's feels sleazy, and like most people, how I feel about something is often more important than what the law says about something.Naturally, it's not as simple as this. Not all record companies or artists have agreements to put their library on-line. For example, nothing by Jim Croce is on line. None of the original albums by Tommy James and the Shondells are on line. And all on-line music is limited to less than CD quality. This last isn't important, as I don't have the golden ear to tell the difference, but it might be important to serious audiophiles (do audiophiles listen to Jim Croce?). So I think I'll limit my library CD ripping to songs I can't find on-line and for which the CD's are no longer available. That's a pretty tiny subset.--Percy