Redbook Keeps Surprising

... consider this scenario; I buy a disc from a regular retail source, pay the prescribed market price, listen to it, don't rip it or save it in any way and then grow tired of it, and give it to a friend/donating it; is that a violation of copyright law as well? ... can I assume the same would apply to (after my death and therefore no longer using my discs) giving it all to my son or if he does not want it, to a music library as a donation?

Cleeds is correct.  Simply put, copyright law imposes restrictions on copying.  If there is no copying, there is no violation.

Regards,
-- Al
 

Almarg: Thank you for your help!

Okay ... I like to make cassette copies of some of my favorite vinyl LP's and play them in my car ... especially on road trips.  Am I violating copyright law in this instance?  

What if I make a cassette copy of an LP and give it to a friend?  Or, how about if I rip an LP to a CD disc, then play the CD in my car ... or give the CD to a friend?  Is that against the law too?

In fact, just this morning I ripped two LPs to one CD disc ... a  mono copy of a Woody Herman LP, long out of print, and a mono copy of a Tony Scott LP, also long out of print. Then, I ripped the copied CD to another CD ... now there's one CD for my car and one CD for a friend who requested it after hearing both LP's on my system last night. 

Thousands of used CD's are sold on Ebay and Amazon each week, so that must be legal it seems. 

There are thousands of CD recorders sold ... I have the home version of the Tascam Pro made by TEAC.  If its illegal to make a copy of a music CD ... why are Tascam and TEAC in business?  I have installed a good program on my PC that makes excellent copies of CD's. Why is that software maker and the computer maker still in business? 

While I have purchased countless numbers of used CDs via Ebay, from thrift stores and garage sales, I have never sold a copy to anyone. I am not in the recording resale business. 

 Ethics?  Um ... how many posting here remember when CD's first came out? Remember when all of the vinyl was stripped from the record store shelves almost over night and everything was replaced by CD's at $18.99 a pop for terrible sounding digital recordings? No violations of ethics by leaving the consumer with no choice other than to pay exorbitant prices for a lousy product, eh? 

Ethics?  How may posting here are sick and tired of buying full price CD's, only to get them home to find that they are drenched in digital reverb, have screechy strings and are pretty much unlistenable ... unless one finds running dental floss through one's ears enjoyable? 

Ethics?  Okay, so I guess in order to really be on the up and up, I'll have to start telling my friends to go pay collector prices for the out of print stuff and just forget me making any copies for them of the absolutely unattainable stuff too.  Oh, and no more copies for the car either. 

Crapolla, we certainly live in a complicated, over-regulated statist world, do we not?  

I think I'm getting old. 

OP

oregonpapa

" ... I like to make cassette copies of some of my favorite vinyl LP’s and play them in my car ... especially on road trips. Am I violating copyright law in this instance?"

This is not nearly so complicated as some here seem to want to make it.

For your own personal use, you can make copies of copyrighted material that you own. You cannot distribute those copies, regardless of whether you charge a fee for them, or whether you give them away.

@oreganpapa you still make cassettes???? You have a car that has a cassette player? That’s downright quaint!

Cleeds ...

Yes, I have a low mileage 2005 (just turned 64,000) Lexus LS 400 that has a Mark Levinson sound system in it. You should hear how it sounds when a really clean vinyl record is recorded onto cassette and then played back on a good car system like the Mark Levinson.   Nothing "quaint" about it really. Nostalgic maybe, but not quaint.  Just as a point of interest, I have a cassette recording of a live broadcast of a piano/cello duo that I recorded off of my FM tuner years ago. That darned recording sounds like the cello is in the car. No joke.