Mark writes:
i'm at this moment listening to a cd called "Homegoing" by the Skip Heller Quartet. is it 'illegal copying' to burn a cd of this so that i can listen to it in my car?
Assuming you BOUGHT the original, then the answer is no - it is not illegal, nor is it immoral. You bought the thing, you have the right to enjoy it in your car, in your bathtub, or anywhere else. Additionally, if you have BOUGHT the COMPLETE Cuneiform Curlew releases, it is also legally and MORALLY sound for you to burn a CDR of your favorite tunes off of these paid for Curlew releases and to listen to the material this 'greatest hits' way, whether at home or in your car or wherever. You have paid for the 'individual personal use right' to use these recordings in any PERSONAL way you wish to use them (PERSONAL USE means, for example, that you do not have the right to use them as a soundtrack to the film you are making). What is not legally right or morally right is if you burn copies and then sell the originals while retaining the CDR copies for yourself; by the act of selling the originals, you are conferring the 'individual consumer use license' that you have gained by buying the originals to the person who buys them from you; once you sell them, you have lost that license and no longer have the 'right' to listen to these copies you made off of your bought copies. I realize that this is obviously easily ignored by people who don't care about these things; I am only writing this reply because he asked. As I stated earlier, I don't want to get into a bunch of "what if" scenarios, but this scenario seemed to actually have some basis in reality, so I responded. Steve Cuneiform Records