The Moral Dimension

ARIA have logged your IP and will pay you a visit soon.

The internet Police are on their way as we speak......

Andrew

Mike, funny you should say about those two albums.
The other day I bought an Optimus turntable from Dick Tandy and I have just copied those two exact albums, as well as others onto my computer today.
Will burn them onto a CD tonight.
Conscience ??? Nup don't have one!!!!!!!!

Fair point Mike.
I think the notion of music ownership is changing.
I was looking into purchasing music on line. All the places that I checked sent you media with limitations. e.g. You could only burn onto X cd's, and transfer onto X pc's befre you meusic expired and could not longer be used.
Like you I am not intersted in purchasing a short term lease on the music - I wanna own it.
The only way to own it is to purchase entire albums in shops and rip your self.

Seems to be the money making trend of today, lots of people in your pocket regulary for small amounts - that all add up.

Paul.

Not sure about the morals of "stealing the music",but you should be arrested for buying such pulp in the first place!!!

Flame away!!

Cheers,

Mark

Morally, I would think that since you've already paid for the music once, you shouldn't have a problem. After all, you are just downloading what you have already paid for but in a different format.
Of course legally, it's a different matter. You could be unlucky. But if it's a one time thing you shouldn't attract the authorities. Maybe ....

Anyone that downloads a Neil Diamond album deserve to be flogged in public anyway.

IMHO, he ranks alongside that other Neil - Neil Young as the most boring singer ever to be allowed to release a record.

Other than that - you've stolen from record companies who steal from artists anyway. You paid for the first album and it's not thier fault that you no longer have an LP player.

But,,,,,,,,,,go for it, it's your life. Sony are making a fortune anyway, they won't miss it. ;)

Bilbo

Mike,

I've read up on copying electronic medium, songs, movies etc. There was a good article in one of the computer mags a couple of months ago.

The bottom line is that you will be able to copy music to different formats for your own use. There are a few small technical bits, but if the files are changed in some way it will (or is, not sure of dates) be legal in Australia. If you pay for a music CD the files are in WAV format. If you copy them onto your hard drive and convert them to say, MP3, this is legal. If the files are copyed and kept the same it will be illegal, although I'm not sure how you would get caught :-). There was also a clause re 'backing up' your own disc/tapes/records.

The changes to the legislation came about due to the free trade agreement with the US. This was part of it, although nobody was told.

The writer of the article in the mag was a little bit cynical - all this legislation deals with electronic medium etc etc - however the power of the US Film industry had their input, Movies are exempt from this legislation - you can't copy a commercial movie and you can't defeat the copy protection/encryption...... Maybe I should had said they don't want you to, not "can't".

There's probably a site with all this info on it - and more accurate than me :-)

Tim - Stratford.

If we paid a "fair price" for our favourite music, we would possibly not have to face the issues that you have raised. Live bands/ entertainers need to be encouraged regardless of their choice of music unless of course it is rap crap, hip hop, heavy metal or any other of that junk I can't stand. LOL
There are so many people using the file share programmes that the music police are about 5000 years behind in prosecutions on their current budget limitations.

Who on Earth could ever feel guilty for "stealing" from these Prima Donnas?

Let's face it. These clowns make an obscene amount of money for doing nothing more than speaking quickly into a microphone.

The bulk of them are drug/booze filled dills who just got lucky. Most of them are dirty shagrats who have the morals of an alley cat.

OI Mike,my ex son inlaw has been doing it for yrs also with movies so go ahead & make your day.:))))
Cheer's bob.

Mike, I have an answer to to discretions.
Some time ago I bought from Dick Smith (the electronic dick!) an Optimus turntable. It plugs nicely into your computer and you can transfer all your antiquated Records into CD's. Simple and easy. I think from memory it was about $100, but it has paid for itself many times over.
I have a great selection of cassetts, LP's, and now CD's. I even have for the older among you a great collection of reel to reel tapes.
Steve

The only morales that count are your own.

The yanks legislation is "fair use". This means that backups, file conversions are fine. Australia should follow suit and put it in plain english.

In my mind you are merely backing up your own records.

Don't worry about it Mike, rip them off before they rip you off I say :)

Anyway, we wouldn't HAVE computers if it wasn't for the oil industry.

Bilbo

Mike,

Anything to remind you of Stevie Nicks when that album was recorded is OK as far as I am concerned.

Have a good one.

Whoops - DELETE that. Wrong thread. This homebrew's strong stuff!

Bilbo

Definately paid your dues. The same record companies probably still own the rights but don't put it out on vinyl. You can't use your records now as they are not a supported format.

Go for it!

Music industry way off track with song and dance about falling sales
Figures show that we're buying albums in record numbers, despite the internet 'freeloaders', writes Steve Cannane.

The Australian record industry has just had its best year ever. But it doesn't want you to know about it. This month ARIA announced its sales figures for last year. In its press release, it talked about Delta, it talked about falling CD singles sales, it talked about the rise in DVD sales, but at no stage did it tell us it was the industry's best year ever. Why bury the good news?

Record industry types aren't usually shy about success. But this time their success is a little embarrassing. For the past few years the industry has argued that file-sharing and CD burning is having a negative impact on sales. But, unfortunately, their own sales figures don't back up their arguments.

ARIA's press release was slugged with a bizarre headline: "Music DVD continues its rise whilst CD singles slide further". A mixed year, you might think. Not so. It took a canny finance reporter, SBS's Peter Martin, to decode the spin. He had access to ARIA sales figures going back to the early 1980s. He worked out what ARIA knew but decided not to share: when sales cracked 50 million albums for the year it was the first time this had happened. And combined sales of all formats for last year climbed to more than 65 million for the first time.
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But that's just one year, I hear the record companies say. OK, let's go back to 1998. The year before an 18-year-old college dropout named Shawn Fanning wrote a file-sharing program called Napster, the software that kick-started the downloading boom. In that year Australian record companies sold 39.6 million CD albums. Five years later the figure had gone up to 50.5 million. That makes it hard to argue that downloading and CD copying has been killing sales.

But what about the sales of singles, I hear the record companies cry. Singles sales did fall last year by a significant amount. While album sales increased by 7.85 per cent, singles sales went down by 16.5 per cent. But what would you rather? We know which format makes the most money. ARIA wants to stress the drop in singles sales because it suits its argument.

But it's not telling the whole truth. It neglects to mention the record companies are not releasing as many singles as they used to. Sales of singles do not make much money. Singles are these days pretty much released for promotional purposes - to get radio play and drum up interest in an album. In the US, singles have virtually disappeared from sale.

But what about our research, I hear the record companies scream. ARIA paid a research company to survey music consumers. The survey results suggest there's been a 12 per cent decrease in CD purchases by people who are into file-sharing. The greatest percentage is with the under-17s - people who don't have much money. But the research suggests those with the money, the 45 and overs, are buying more CDs after file-sharing. Now that's a statistic we never hear quoted.

According to Stephen Peach, CEO of ARIA, "The free ride simply can't continue indefinitely at the expense of the owners and creators of music."

If we ignore the rhetoric of record companies caring about artists for a moment, let's think about this. Maybe it's the record industry that's getting a free ride from file-sharing - a massive marketing system that allows music lovers to get exposed to all kinds of music without the record industry having to pay a cent.

I'll tell you what the record companies are paying for now, and it's not scholarships for the struggling artists they say they're trying to protect. It's lawsuits. ARIA is taking on Kazaa and suing university students. American record companies have sued nearly 2000 file-sharers in the past six months. Even the FBI has become involved. It says music piracy has become its third priority behind terrorism and counter-intelligence. A number of US Congress members who rely on the entertainment industry for campaign funds lobbied the FBI to spend more money hunting file-sharers and CD burners. So now CDs in the US carry FBI stickers warning of fines of $250,000 or five years in prison.

There's been no similar push by Australia's Federal Police. But keep your eyes on the figures - next year could be another record year for album sales and for prosecutions.

I have no qualms about converting the cd's I have purchased to MP3. I paid for it, I can use it how I like. If I buy a sleeping bag, are there rules about how to sleep in it. if I buy vegies can they only be steamed or converted to mash before eaten? I paid for it, I will do what I want with it. I'm not out selling what I do with them to others so all those copyright laws can bugger off.

Not very philosophical this lot . Most quote legalities , which can be quite different to morality . The primary moral concept is " do unto others as you would have them do unto you " .

Then to muddy the waters a bit , you may have to ask yourself " is it OK to benefit from someone else's sin even if the original victim wont suffer anymore " . But be careful here , there is a sting to it .

First of all Mike, WTF has morals got to do with it- this is the law we're talking about! And your question couldn't have come at a better time. The Copyright Amentment Bill 2006 http://parlinfoweb.aph.gov.au/piweb/Repository/Legis/Bills/Linked/19100601.pdf
is currently before Parliament. Section 109A, and if passed, I think would make what you have done (called format shifting) not an infringement of copyright. Although I was a bit concerned (I still can't work out why I might be concerned for your copyright issues, but anyhow) that if the copy you sourced was an infringing copy, rather than a direct copy of the vinyl you bought, that might still be an infringement. But on a cursory reading of the relevant section, that might not matter, because it doesn't specify how the copy can or can't be made. Any further advice will have to be charged to you at several hundred dollars an hour, which would be to cover the cost of keeping me awake to understand the legislation.
So for some bedtime reading, check it out. Absolutely rivetting stuff. Cheers

In the context to your question....If the music catologue has been sold to a new owner it could probably be argued you are stealing from the new owner despite having bought it years ago and paid your dues.

The interesting thing I find about this thread is that it seems that many don't have a problem dipping into someone else's pocket (musicians/music companies) on the basis that they are making a fortune anyway, yet when it comes to the oil companies dipping into our pockets there is outrage........

It's a funny world out there.

Site Link

i know exactly what you mean.
our local adult store just had all its videos taken of the shelf.
lucky i can down load from the net,
cheers

Mike
Go for it mate, you only live once, I used Audio Galaxy when it was running and got some old 50s RnR and 100s of others that I doubt would be available today

Doug