Thinking about selling my CD collection = MP3

I'm having a really hard time understanding these legal issues:

First, I've always understood that it's perfectly legal to make a single copy of a CD (purchased retail) for one's own use -- whether it's on your server, iPod, optical disc or cassette.

Second, I don't think there is anything illegal about selling a CD used (originally purchased retail) and keeping the one copy you made legally. Are you supposed to destroy your legal copy if you sell the original disc used? Talk about a law with no teeth! Why do they even bother?

I'm not sure you can really say there is "no teeth" when the RIAA is out there suing people for downloading mp3s.

The legal issue, if I remember a prior thread on this correctly, is that the act of copying is either fair use or not, and today's copyright law tends to measure whether or not its fair use at the time the act is committed. Thus, making a copy of a disk you own is probably fair use. Making a copy of a disk you do not own is not. There is also the first sale doctrine that permits you to sell a CD you have legally acquired. Put those together and you may "legally" have the right to copy a CD you own and sell the original. I happen to think that if a judge was called upon to decide whether you not a person copying a 1.5K collection of CDs and then selling the originals was engaged in "fair use," s/he might find the copying was *not* fair use.

Regardless of the pure legality or illegality of the act, however, seems to me that fairness to the artist dictates not keeping a copy if you sell the original.

Yea and want about used record and CD stores? Are they breaking some law by even being in business or am I breaking some law by shopping there? I don't get any of it!

You are breaking the law when you rip the cd and THEN sell the disc. You can rip it and keep it. It's your music you paid for. But, it's when you rip it and then sell it to someone else that it is illegal.

Regarding used cd stores: when I sell a used cd to a store, I don't own the music anymore. They can sell to someone else because it hasn't been copied. Now, does that mean used cd stores don't sell discs that have been ripped? Absolutely not. No one has any idea whether a used disc has been ripped or not. But, that alone doesn't make it legal.