Thread: Music file sharing and used cd sales

What exactly is the legal difference between music file sharing and used cd sales? Over the years I have bought many cd's from used stores, and the music industry never saw a cent of that money. However, if you burn a copy of a cd that a friend bought, your breaking the law. Difference? Maybe....but I'm not sure.

Yes, there is a difference. The music companies have already sold that CD, so they get the money from it that way. The original owner no longer has the CD, so when you buy it second hand you are the only owner of that CD.

That makes perfect sense. However in most cases, if I were to download an uploaded cd, chances are good that someone bought the cd to upload it in the first place. If a used cd store can buy and sell the same copy of a cd 20 times and make a large profit off of a musician who sees no compensation other than the original $15 they made the first time it was bought, why shouldn't I be able to make 20 copies of the one I own and give them to whoever I choose. By law the owner of a cd is allowed to rip an mp3 copy for their own use with itunes or any other media player. If that same person ripped their mp3 copy, then traded in that cd, that person would now have a copy without the original source. Which would seem to be perfectly legal.

Sorry to be so long winded

Well, practicalities would step in here. You try and stop everything previously mentioned, go on

When you buy a CD, you're essentially leasing very specific rights from the music company to listen to the music for your own pleasure and not to play it publicly, etc. These rights are transferable, which is how come you can buy used CDs. But by the original owner transferring the rights, they no longer can listen to the music legally. Well on the radio and TV etc. obviously, but like if they have a back up CD they can't listen to that.

When you download music, your essentially creating a new copy of the music. Both original owner and downloader can listen to the music at the same time, which is a licensing problem. It might also be considered a form of public exhibition, which is against the legal leasing rights.

Basically it's pretty hairy You can bet if record companies could they'd either outlaw used record sales or find a way to make money off of it. Video game developers have the same issue with second hand sales of their games. The used media market is a huge issue to media producers in general.