Nothing wrong with keeping what you bought, do be careful how you store them, if they’re in a loft, garage or unheated space they can deteriorate, I’ve had CD’s I flicked through when I moved house the coating flaked off on my hand and they were entirely unplayable despite taking reasonable care.
Same goes for vinyl and tapes of course.
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Similar here. At the time when I purchased the UServe, nothing streaming wise could match the sound quality of a ripped cd locally served via UPnP.
Things have moved on recently, but using my wife’s base Spotify account, it sounds quite dreadful in comparison. And I have not been inclined to venture into higher quality streaming yet, so I am still purchasing CD’s and ripping them .
Under UK law you cannot copy a CD. It doesn’t matter what you intend to use the copy for, or whether or not you intend to keep the original. I’m not aware of any cases where an individual has been prosecuted for doing this, but nevertheless, that is the law.
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That sucks!
In the highly unlikely event of being prosecuted, I guess that the penalty would be nominal if one had all the CDs proving that copies of the music had at least been bought? Not having the CDs could well result in a much more severe penalty.
Just wondering, does the UK have used cd/record/tape stores?
Well, I’m sure they do…
So, how does that work out, legally speaking?
At each transaction (original owner to store, store to customer, that new owner direct to another, ad infinitum), the ownership and right to play passes to the new owner, and at any point in time only the owner of the physical medium has the right to play the music - it is still a single copy with a single right to play. I believe - but do not know for certain - that the playing rights are transferrable - if not then no-one after the first owner has the right to play, though of course they can collect.
Such shops have existed for decades, some prominently, and I’m sure if illegal the music industry would have moved to shut them down - but then of course it is not sale of the medium that would be illegal, rather a new owner, not having bought new, playing it, and that would involve countless tracking, raids and small prosecutions, so the fact that the shops continue to exist and trade openly perhaps is no indication…
I’m sure someone on here will know the definitive position.
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There was an interesting item about vinyl and ripping on R6 a day or so ago, part of the discussion looked at what is greener, streaming or owning the vinyl. Basically due to the power demands of streamer companies server farms and ISP infrastructure still coming mostly from fossil fuels the answer about which is greener is nuanced. If you listen to an LP 20 times then it is currently greener to buy the LP taking into account CO2 production manufacturing, distribution etc rather than stream it. I suspect the balance between CDs and streaming will be similar and that is before you take into account that you are ripping something you already own, which is partly why I ripped all my CDs. Though there is the power used by your NAS, uniti core or similar to take into account, this can be kept CO2 free via solar cells at home or using an ECO electricity supplier.
I don’t think selling or buying second hand CDs is a problem. Ripping is strictly illegal in the UK, but keeping those rips when you’ve sold the originals could be an aggravating factor. However, I suspect the chance of being prosecuted is extremely small.
For me though this is principally a moral issue. Ripping and selling the original is theft, digital theft indeed, but still theft. So I prefer to keep the originals. But that’s just my perspective.
Roger
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Yes, if you sell the physical media you are selling the right to listen to that music so there is no legal issue there. It’s copying it that’s illegal. The recording industry managed to persuade the British courts to outlaw copying for any purpose, even backup, or as a means of playing the music on different devices. Say you have a hifi system at home with a server, a car that plays CDs, and a portable player that plays from an SD card. They want you to buy the same music 3 times to play it on 3 different systems. Yes, they really are that greedy.
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I thought the strategy here was to get a media tax on the books so that every HDD, USB stick, optical disc, SD card, etc. had a levy applied to it which via some route(s) or other would make its way back to the music industry. A typical industry move - free money. In return the labels would grudgingly let us end users (who they have treated like criminals for generations) make a copy providing we kept the original.
Personally, I think that copying the original then selling it on, or giving it away and keep the copy is theft. Same for literature, software, art and similar. But it’s unenforceable. Not being able to make a copy of something you have bought and intend to retain is plain ridiculous, but just as unenforceable, so who cares?
The industry regards a safe backup versus a deliberate fraudulent duplication to be splitting a hair. I doubt there is much sympathy for this view. The copy tax levy thing hasn’t (as far as I know) made it on the the books or anywhere near. So basically we’ve just got the industry belly aching about a silly law that can’t be enforced. I expect they are simultaneously telling their artists that ordinary people are stealing their royalties.
To Ken’s OP: I have more music than I could possibly need. It is unlikely that I will listen to every track I own in the remainder of my lifetime. But it’s never enough and I am always looking forward to my next score.
thanks for your thoughts Harry.
well while ripping, came across a 32 CD box set “Rachmaninov Complete Works”. I didnt even know i had it!!!?? this is telling me something, me thinks.
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Wait until you find you have two copies of it! At that point you will know that you are beyond hope - as are many of us. But happily so.
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Yes, I believe it was this omission that resulted in the courts revoking their change in the law. If the levy had been applied, and at a reasonable rate, I guess we would all just accept it, as we would have no choice, but the fact that it would be levied on storage media used for non-music data storage, or backup makes it somewhat inequitable, as does the fact that the tiny amount of revenue that the industry passes on to artists mostly goes to those who are either stinking rich, dead, or both.
In the unlikely event that I get a knock on the door, I wonder if they would try to confiscate my Unitiserve or my CDs.
As to the OP’s initial question: as I’ve mentioned elsewhere on this forum, I’m in the process of ripping my cd collection to a Core and I find that I decide to skip the cd’s which I just know I will never listen to again, especially mediocre performances of classical pieces of which I also have one or more good recordings. This is resulting in a modest heap of cd’s which I will bring to a charity shop. At the same time I ripped at least three different editions of the compete Beethoven string quartets as I could not bring myself to discarding any of them. I gues the point is: I’m rediscovering many recordings which are a real joy to listen to and to hold on to.
Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Another can of worms opened by the labels for their own edification/amusement/engorgement.
Biased? Me? Yes.
I’ve just been going through some of my old vinyl and apparently home taping is killing music. Shocking. Something needs to be done.
I confess that I, too, tried my hardest to kill the music indusrty by taping my mates records, and letting them tape mine. Evidently it didn’t work. In fact I would argue that it was a key part of the process that for many of us resulted in a lifelong passion for recorded and live music in general.
Ripping continuing. Its quite eye opening to see some of the problems that can occur while ripping - and that were ‘invisible’ with the Unitiserve. Wrong artwork, wrong album even, inaccurate ripping etc
what i want to find out from all you dbpoweramp experts is the following: Can i safely edit, within “File station” on the QNAP YS251, things like Album artists, Album name, etc… Yes, i know its better to get these right at ripping time – but in case of mistakes etc?
enjoy/ken
Just re- rip it.
Ant reason why you would choose to use File Station for edits instead of DBpoweramp?