What to do with 1,200 CDs I don't need

No, it wasn't a troll. That is what I intended to do until it was clearly pointed out that my intentions were certainly immoral and probably illegal. I agree that the RIAA is out of control but that doesn’t mean that everything they stand for is wrong.

In the U.S.A. something is presumed legal unless specifically defined as illegal.

Not that it has anything to do with this debate but I’m not so sure about that. There is no way to specifically define every illegal act as being so. Unprecedented situations arise everyday and the courts routinely take laws and precedents to determine what is and is not legal.

Using your logic, since there is no specific law banning my store idea, and you believe each act in and of itself is legal; wouldn’t you have to agree that the whole operation is legal?

If it is legal, as you suggest to buy it, take it home, rip a copy to keep, and sell it; it surely would be legal if you took your laptop to the store with you to make the copy instead of going home to do it. Why would it become illegal just because someone else actually made the copy? Does selling it right back without waiting some period of time make it illegal? Do you have to sell it to somebody other than the person who sold it to you?

One local re-seller here has a policy that you can return a CD or record within a few days for any reason and they will buy it back at ½ what you paid. If I take my laptop down there and stay all day making copies as I buy them and sell them right back is a law being broken? I think there is.

I completely agree that the store idea is intended to circumvent the law, but you can’t have it both ways. If my store is illegal then buying/ripping/selling and retaining the copy has to be illegal no matter how it is accomplished.

Your honor, I rest my case.

Along the same lines, I was in Japan recently and noticed there are a lot of pachinko parlors. It’s a gambling machine that is kind of a cross between a slot machine and a pinball machine. They were always very busy and I wondered why these people would put money into them for hours on end if gambling on them was illegal. Turns out that it is illegal for them to pay out money but you can win a prize like a doll or a pack of cigarettes. After they awarded your prize the parlor would then buy it back for the amount of money you would have won. I suppose that the whole enterprise wouldn’t stand up in court but nobody has bothered to prosecute it.

Onhwy61: Based on my experience with him on Audiogon over the years, IMO Herman wouldn't post a troll anymore than you or I would. Oftentimes discussing and writing about stuff also serves as a way to think it through for yourself -- at least that's what I've found.

Yes, I agree, at some point the insanity of the legal system makes it impossible to pre-determine what the courts will decide. However, I would equate the buy/rip/sell as being the equivalent of the illegal copying of the circuitry rather than reverse engineering. I suppose it could go the other way.

I simply can't believe your prostitution analogy. If that was true every escort service and prostitute in the country would declare themselves as providing adult film services and effectively legalize prostitution nationwide.

I'm still confident that you would lose a case involving buy/rip/sell but realize until that case is tried in the courts our discussion is probably just a waste of bandwidth.

I was in a similar boat as you a couple years back. I had a couple hundred CD’s I accumulated over the years. Some were bought out of fad, some because I had to have the whole set, and others were bought for 1 or 2 popular songs I heard on the radio. I cut my collection down to about ¼ of what it was and purchased new and superior recordings that better suit my personality and newfound pickiness. There are a lot of bad artists out there and I am much more choosy in who I support. I will not buy a CD if it only has 2 or 3 good songs.

I take this minimalist approach a step farther with my purchases. The ONLY CD’s I buy are Classical or are albums by my favorite artists, which usually result’s in their full studio recordings. I believe an individuals music collection is a ‘strong’ reflection of themselves – why gunk it up? Sell what you don’t listen to…if there is a song or two on a particular album that you haven’t picked up in 5 years but could ‘possibly’ see yourself listening to in the future…put it on a Hard Drive, back it up, and enjoy.