It would seem to me that you are buying a license to play any cut on the disk at any time you choose and as many times as you want as long as only one instance of the cut is playing at a given time.
One can easily loan a disk to another to play. My use of the disk is obviously limited if it is physically somewhere else. Enter technology. Now we can share a cut with others without surrendering the physical disk.
I have lot's of CDs where I rarely, if ever, play many of the cuts. Why shouldn't I be able to share with others as long as only one instance is being used at a time?
Hence the need for the file sharing technology to have a sharing cookie arrangement be attached to the file such that only one instance of a licensed cut be played at a given time. End of legal problem. Still death to the record industry.
Interesting opinion for one who frequents a site that does just that. The articles reprinted here are also copyrighted and this site has already settled a suit in the matter.
Of course, I don't hold that it is stealing or unethical at all. I believe that Free Republic is making legitimate use of the "Fair Use" provision in copyright law that allows people to exchange copyrighted materials for disussion so long as they do not profit by it.
Well the people swapping MP3s aren't profiting by it either. And the file-traders could well be "discussing" the music amongst each other (which is why all these file-trading sites have chat capability).
Just as people can store and archive MP3s so that they don't have to buy the CDs, people can store and archive articles that are posted here so that they don't have to subscribe to the publications that publish them. One may argue that we are doing the more honorable thing here but it really boils down to the same thing. In both cases, copyrighted material is being disseminated.
Granted that most of the articles posted here are already available for free on the originating websites. But those websites depend on clicks to drive their advertising revenue. So we should get in the habit here of clicking the source URL for articles posted here so that the originating website gets a click. Losing the ability to read and discuss articles here will be a terrible thing. It will also be a terrible thing to lose the ability to sample the MP3s of music I am thinking of buying.
I rip other people's songs. I rip them to MP3 format after I have already purchased the CD. This allows me to put approximately 10-12 complete CDs onto one disc. I have about a dozen of these in my car right now that I can play in my car stereo. This equals anywhere between 120-144 discs!
I have loads of music in the car and in addition to the obvious saving of space, I do not need to worry about protecting a significant investment in music from being stolen. Am I wrong for doing this?