To Sell CD Collection or Not To Sell…

prowla

Sporky said:

boogieman said:

If you do rip and sell the CDs

...then you're committing a criminal offence. 

Yep - you're keeping illegal copies of music.

Same for DVDs.

octatonic

We got rid of DVD's and CD's when we moved country.
There was no point selling them- we gave them to charity.

heavyrocker

prowla said:

Sporky said:

boogieman said:

If you do rip and sell the CDs

...then you're committing a criminal offence. 

Yep - you're keeping illegal copies of music.

Same for DVDs.

What if you rip a cd and then later on down the line you lose the cd or it gets stolen? Does that make you a criminal by keeping the ripped files?

Sporky

I believe it does, unless you replace the CD.

It's clearly not naughty on the same scale as murder, but ripping an entire collection and then selling it is, to my mind, obviously morally dodgy. 

octatonic

Sporky said:

I believe it does, unless you replace the CD.

It's clearly not naughty on the same scale as murder, but ripping an entire collection and then selling it is, to my mind, obviously morally dodgy. 

The law is a bit out of date and out of step with how things actually are now.

Say you own a CD, rip it and then lose the CD but coincidently have a Spotify subscription that allows you to play the CD, or even download it to your device.
The reality is no one really gives a damn about ripped CD's anymore*- it stopped being a thing once the labels agreed with streaming services about pricing.

* Except here in Singapore.
Here you can and will be fined if you bring in bootleg CD's or DVD's.
When we moved here I had to document every CD and DVD we owned.

57Deluxe

Saving CDs for future posterity is unfortunately not possible without climate controlled conditions as they get a mould that grows on and between the layers rendering them inoperable.

Creed_Clicks

Thinking about it again, and I think I'd be happy enough selling or giving away the DVD collection and ripping them to digital, if I can find something that would keep the menu and chapters once they are transferred.

Most of the convert DVDs I have, I bought in the early to mid 00s, and since then there are so many live concerts on YouTube, that it would be one and the same if I didn't have them.

CDs.... Initially, I might keep the best of the collection, and get rid of the dodgy ones (such as Megadeth "Risk" and Van Halen "Balance"), but in time might get rid of the whole lot.

Though I have some Swervedriver ones I had to track down on ebay over the years so will probably keep the likes of those.

axisus

I still buy CDs. Sell them for £1 each here and PM me first!

I'm too long in the tooth to buy downloads, it just feels a bit 'hollow'. I bought a couple of albums and they were so good that I ended up paying again for a CD copy. Same with Books. I love books, I just can't do the Kindle/iPad thing.

prowla

heavyrocker said:

prowla said:

Sporky said:

boogieman said:

If you do rip and sell the CDs

...then you're committing a criminal offence. 

Yep - you're keeping illegal copies of music.

Same for DVDs.

What if you rip a cd and then later on down the line you lose the cd or it gets stolen? Does that make you a criminal by keeping the ripped files?

Well, that could be an interesting question, but it's not what's being proposed here.

heavyrocker

prowla said:

heavyrocker said:

prowla said:

Sporky said:

boogieman said:

If you do rip and sell the CDs

...then you're committing a criminal offence. 

Yep - you're keeping illegal copies of music.

Same for DVDs.

What if you rip a cd and then later on down the line you lose the cd or it gets stolen? Does that make you a criminal by keeping the ripped files?

Well, that could be an interesting question, but it's not what's being proposed here.

No but I asked it with the intention of showing the absurdity of some of our laws when applied to real life situations. I agree with Sporky though that ripping your entire collection and selling them is both illegal and morally dubious.

ICBM

Believe it or not, currently the law has reverted to it being illegal even to rip them for your own personal use - which is clearly ridiculous, and I can’t see anyone being done for it - but even if that gets fixed it will always be illegal to get rid of the CDs without deleting the copies.

I just prefer to keep the CDs - I like having a physical thing that I actually own, even if I rarely use it. The audio quality on a good system really is slightly higher too, even compared to fairly high-rate mp3 - I actually save hard drive (and especially iPod) space by ripping at purposely lower rate, knowing that I have the CD if I want to listen properly.

I’m actually in the middle of re-ripping the whole lot to AAC, replacing many earlier-generation mp3 encodes - it’s a lot of work, but the quality improvement is noticeable. I wouldn’t have been able to if I hadn’t kept the CDs.

There’s also usually some nice artwork and interesting information in the CD booklet. You might not look at it much, but it’s often a lot more than you can find online.

Creed_Clicks

The ones, I'll get rid of. I don't even think I'll rip them. I'll be getting rid of them for a reason. I'll have to think about what to do with the rest over the weekend. Rip or not.

Anyone use Power ISO to transfer dvds? It's about $29 to buy so might be worth a punt in order to put all dvds on digital.

Whitecat

I ripped my entire collection recently - over 1,000 - and binned the jewel cases, then put the discs and the sleeves/inserts into some Amazon disc wallets (each one like 400 capacity). They take up a fraction of the space and fit easily in the corner of the loft. Someday my son might want to sift through and listen to them, or I might lose my digital collection, or whatever... it's all still there.

Also, if you subscribe to iTunes Match, Apple basically issues you with a "legal" copy of everything it also has in the iTMS and keeps it in the cloud. Obscure stuff that it doesn't have gets uploaded. It's worth the money, IMO.

Creed_Clicks

I have the CDs and DVDs in the wallets already, but have the cases and sleeves in the attic. I could put the sleeves in with the discs but not sure if this would damage the discs over time?

Whitecat

Creed_Clicks said:

I have the CDs and DVDs in the wallets already, but have the cases and sleeves in the attic. I could put the sleeves in with the discs but not sure if this would damage the discs over time?

You can put sleeves in separate pockets in the big wallets, which is what I had to do - they wouldn't close otherwise.

Sporky

heavyrocker said:

No but I asked it with the intention of showing the absurdity of some of our laws when applied to real life situations. I agree with Sporky though that ripping your entire collection and selling them is both illegal and morally dubious.

I think it's more a demonstration of how easy it is to come up with an edge case scenario that isn't covered ideally by the existing rules. Though if ICBM is correct (and I've no reason to think he isn't) ripping at all is illegal, so that edge case is indeed covered.

heavyrocker

Sporky said:

heavyrocker said:

No but I asked it with the intention of showing the absurdity of some of our laws when applied to real life situations. I agree with Sporky though that ripping your entire collection and selling them is both illegal and morally dubious.

I think it's more a demonstration of how easy it is to come up with an edge case scenario that isn't covered ideally by the existing rules. Though if ICBM is correct (and I've no reason to think he isn't) ripping at all is illegal, so that edge case is indeed covered.

Either way, it’s an absurd law anyway and one which undermines the law generally since it’s so regularly flouted with impunity. 

paddyb

I sold my DVD collection as I just don't watch them anymore - I will always stick something from on demand or netflix so they were just sitting there.
I wont sell my CD's though, I like having the physical copies and just seeing an album I haven't listened to in a while often makes me re-visit it.

prowla

heavyrocker said:

prowla said:

heavyrocker said:

prowla said:

Sporky said:

boogieman said:

If you do rip and sell the CDs

...then you're committing a criminal offence. 

Yep - you're keeping illegal copies of music.

Same for DVDs.

What if you rip a cd and then later on down the line you lose the cd or it gets stolen? Does that make you a criminal by keeping the ripped files?

Well, that could be an interesting question, but it's not what's being proposed here.

No but I asked it with the intention of showing the absurdity of some of our laws when applied to real life situations. I agree with Sporky though that ripping your entire collection and selling them is both illegal and morally dubious.

Yes, I think the right to have a copy goes with the media, but then again, if it's done under the auspices of a "backup", then that is precisely the circumstance it would be mitigating against.

OTOH, it would be very easy to claim that you'd accidentally "lost" your entire CD collection or had it stolen from your car (but I suppose a crime reference number could reinforce that assertion).

I suppose, like much of UK law, it would be defined by the result of a real-life case.

ICBM

heavyrocker said:

Sporky said:

I think it's more a demonstration of how easy it is to come up with an edge case scenario that isn't covered ideally by the existing rules. Though if ICBM is correct (and I've no reason to think he isn't) ripping at all is illegal, so that edge case is indeed covered.

Either way, it’s an absurd law anyway and one which undermines the law generally since it’s so regularly flouted with impunity. 

Exactly.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/12021607/Why-in-2015-is-ripping-CDs-still-illegal-in-the-UK.html

I agree that ripping and then selling or giving away the original is wrong and should remain illegal - since it's really no different from ripping or downloading a copy from someone else, even if they paid for it originally - but I think making it illegal to listen to your own legally-purchased music in different formats is wrong, and stupid. It's impossible to police, and in any case you can't really listen to more than one copy at the same time - it's purely for convenience.

This still isn't the main reason I keep my CDs, but I think it undermines the legal case for doing so if ripping them *at all* is still illegal, so is a classic case of music industry short-sightedness. Do they really think anyone is going to pay twice for the same music just so they can listen to it somewhere else?

For what it's worth, I will admit to ripping a copy if someone lends me a CD, and to occasionally illegally downloading something I want to try - if I like it, I will eventually get around to buying a legal CD, and if I don't think it's worth buying then I delete it. As a result I spend more on legal music than almost anyone I know - does that make me a bad person?