Thinking about selling my CD collection = MP3

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.

"Agree with Nsgarch. The audio community is replete with members who sold off their vinyl collection in favor of those shiny little discs 15-20 years ago. Many of them are now wearing "kick me hard" signs on the seat of their pants."

Spoken like an antique audio dealer. Maybe your clients are nostalgic , most of mine are glad they're gone.

And you don't have to compress you music you can copy it exactly to your music server.

See soon the idea of playing any disc will be quite foriegn.

Legally you can sell your discs and use your copies just don't give the copies to anyone else or DJ a wedding. And you won't attract any attention that could make you a test case for your position.

Ciao.

Nsgarch, it is complicated and can be very frustrating. It is illegal to copy copywritten material for financial gain or to deprive the owner of the material of financial gain, thus incurring damage. The person who buys your used CD does not reimburse the owner of the copy written material, you continue to have access to the music even though you no longer have the copy written material and have incurred reimbursment from your original purchase. I do think that it is not a big deal and the record labels pursue it to much in most cases, but can you imagine if even 10% of the music listening community downloaded thier millions of CD's and put the used ones on the market, the kind of financial damage that would cause the music industry. It used to be very insignificant but now when people are getting rid of entire collections it can be big big money. i.e. 1500 cd's at $15 each is $22,500.00, and just one collection.

Besides, I listen mostly to LP's and everyone knows that everytime an LP is downloaded a Fairy dies in Neverland.

Will you someday down the road be able to sit and listen again, and if you can will you regret your selling of your collection? It is already spent money and CD's will keep forever, why not hold onto them?
As far as a question of not being able to keep music on file that you sold seems really silly...you payed for it, so what happens when you buy a used CD from a second hand music store, since you only payed a fraction of original cost does that mean you should only be able to rip a fraction of its content?