A Specific Case of Downloading Music.

[Ranorak]

First of all, let me note that I am Dutch, and thus there for are legally allowed to download music for this very purpose I am about to describe.

The reason I'm posting this question is also to hear your views about it.
Al right, exposition time.

I am a huge music lover.
I got a lot, and I mean a LOT, of CD's.
All of them ripped on my pc in order to listen to them on my computer.

Now, a few days ago by hard disk crashed.
My own fault, but it was physically busted beyond repair, or at least, beyond what I was willing to pay for it.

I got a new one, put a fresh Windows 7 install on it, and then I turned and looked at my CD's
I never made a back-up of the files, after all, I had the songs on CD.
I REALLY wasn't looking forward to ripping them all.
In the past it was just whenever I got a new album, I'd rip it there and then, but doing all those things in a row was just mind bogglingly boring.

So, I figured, what if I just torrent the discography of the bands, and I honestly did not include any albums I did not own. (Read: some live albums)

I mean, I own the songs, it'll be just the same as ripping them. Except, anywhere else but The Netherlands (as far as I know) this would have been a crime.
And yes,I could have just ripped them and no harm would have been done, but I was lazy and had more fun things planned.
What are your thoughts about this?

Is what I did justified?

 

[Sleekgiant]

This falls under the same as ROMs so hope the mods don't ban you.

If you own the cds that you are pirating, then yes you can legally download them.

 

[NoMansLand 666]

In some countries, even ripping them is illegal.

If you own it, I personally think you are entitled to a backup copy of it. Doesn't really matter how you obtain the backup so long as you still own the original and didn't sell it on.

"...and I honestly did not include any albums I did not own." We believe you

 

[Chased]

I'd go for it, considering it's legal in the country of Dutch which you speak of.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Morally I would have no problem with a person doing something like this. Whether its legal or not? Who knows!

EDIT: HERP DERP READ THE POST FIELDY YOU DUMB F**K. you live in the netherlands! Where its legal.

 

[Veylon]

My view is that it's A-OK. You've paid for them, so you've got the right.

 

[lacktheknack]

That fits in my ethical torrenting manifesto. Probably should have just ripped them, but you have the same result without any lost theoretical revenue.

 

[CODE-D]

Its still pirating, not that thats a bad thing.
Just dont think justifying it makes it different.
Wish it were legal here.

 

[isometry]

When you buy digital music downloads online, convenience is part of what you pay for.

You said "I own the songs, it'll be just the same as ripping them", but it's not the same, downloading the digital files is much more convenient which is why you wanted to do it. If pirate downloads were not available you might have considered buying the songs online, and if not you, then other people in a similar situation would.

 

[R3VOLU7ION]

I think with music, it's fine. I know a couple people that did the exact same thing, but with movies they owned. I'm not sure if doing it would be okay with movies though :/
I read a thing a while back too, where this guy was pirating backups of games he already owned, so that he didn't have to play with a disk in, or something stupid. I thought that was complete crap though.

 

[balanovich]

I mean, I own the songs, it'll be just the same as ripping them. Except, anywhere else but The Netherlands (as far as I know) this would have been a crime.

It's legal in most places. Even the US (I think). It is in Canada.
...
Actually, there's a glitch. When you torrented, you uploaded parts of the files too. That's not legal. buying the CD's gave you personal right to them. You can't distribute.

Besides that, everything is right.

When you buy digital music downloads online, convenience is part of what you pay for.

You said "I own the songs, it'll be just the same as ripping them", but it's not the same, downloading the digital files is much more convenient which is why you wanted to do it. If pirate downloads were not available you might have considered buying the songs online, and if not you, then other people in a similar situation would.

"convenience is part of what you pay for"... maybe.. but you pay less than for a CD.

If I turn your argument around, can I put digitally bought songs on CD for me to play in my car ?

If to have songs on your PC's hard-drive is a luxury that you need to pay for, why is it legal to rip the CD's you purchased ?

What about back ups ? Lets say I have a CD and I put Rip it to my PC for safekeeping. My dog eat my CD. Is it OK if I burn myself another copy of the CD ?

 

[isometry]

You said "I own the songs, it'll be just the same as ripping them", but it's not the same, downloading the digital files is much more convenient which is why you wanted to do it. If pirate downloads were not available you might have considered buying the songs online, and if not you, then other people in a similar situation would.
"convenience is part of what you pay for"... maybe.. but you pay less than for a CD.

If I turn your argument around, can I put digitally bought songs on CD for me to play in my car ?

If to have songs on your PC's hard-drive is a luxury that you need to pay for, why is it legal to rip the CD's you purchased ?

What about back ups ? Lets say I have a CD and I put Rip it to my PC for safekeeping. My dog eat my CD. Is it OK if I burn myself another copy of the CD ?

Yeah, all of those things are fine if you do them yourself. The point is that people get lazy, and it's easier to download the MP3s from a torrent than to rip all those CDs. Same thing with your burnt CDs, and your backups - legal to do yourself, but not to download. If you want the convenience of a digital backup you should either do it yourself, or buy one, but don't use a pirate service and claim "it's the same as doing it myself", because it's not the same, convenience is the difference and convenience is part of what online media sales are about.

 

[Jedoro]

Course it is. Not only did you pay for the CD's of what you downloaded, but you still have them. If downloading's quicker than individually using each CD to put the music back on your computer (which I'm sure it was), anyone who got pissed would deserve a punch in the dick.

 

[Snotnarok]

You're totally fine, I can't imagine anyone making a stink about that and if they do, they're not terribly bright.

Same problem with me but in a different medium.
I had to torrent some old games because you can't actually install them on newer OS's through the CD which I own before you go yelling at me, you need a mod online to get the game to install. The games I mean: Tie-Fighter, X-Wing vs Tie Fighter and X-Wing Alliance, they DO work on windows 7 but the CD installer just doesn't function so bla bla bla a clever programer made a modified EXE.

 

[Ranorak]

When you buy digital music downloads online, convenience is part of what you pay for.

You said "I own the songs, it'll be just the same as ripping them", but it's not the same, downloading the digital files is much more convenient which is why you wanted to do it. If pirate downloads were not available you might have considered buying the songs online, and if not you, then other people in a similar situation would.

I can very much tell you that, no.
If there were no torrents to download, I would have sighed and started ripping the CD's.
I'm not really that wealthy that I'll spend my money twice on the same product.

Besides, to help along this nice argument, here in the Netherlands, downloading songs is legal.
For compensation, we pay a large tax on empty media such as CD's and DVD's.
Yes, even if you're just using them for your own pictures or whatever.

So, if I were to buy these songs from iTunes and burn them on a CD for my car, I would have payed double.

Tricky stuff all this.

I would NEVER pirate. I wouldn't even rip. I don't want to answer the door and find that the Gardaí or FBI are going to arrest me.

So my advice is: if your country makes it very clear that it's legal, feel free to do so. However, just to be on the safe side, don't do it.

In some countries, even ripping them is illegal.

If you own it, I personally think you are entitled to a backup copy of it. Doesn't really matter how you obtain the backup so long as you still own the original and didn't sell it on.

Due to distribution rights, I can imagine that not all countries have access to all songs for legal digital distribution. How else besides ripping can you use a MP3 player?

"...and I honestly did not include any albums I did not own." We believe you

I know, I know, it sounds like a total lie, but the albums I don't own are usually then ones I don't want, free or not.

Yes, that's Right, suck it The X Factor and Virtual XI, even though you are Iron Maiden, I don't like you!

 

[balanovich]

You said "I own the songs, it'll be just the same as ripping them", but it's not the same, downloading the digital files is much more convenient which is why you wanted to do it. If pirate downloads were not available you might have considered buying the songs online, and if not you, then other people in a similar situation would.
"convenience is part of what you pay for"... maybe.. but you pay less than for a CD.

If I turn your argument around, can I put digitally bought songs on CD for me to play in my car ?

If to have songs on your PC's hard-drive is a luxury that you need to pay for, why is it legal to rip the CD's you purchased ?

What about back ups ? Lets say I have a CD and I put Rip it to my PC for safekeeping. My dog eat my CD. Is it OK if I burn myself another copy of the CD ?

Yeah, all of those things are fine if you do them yourself. The point is that people get lazy, and it's easier to download the MP3s from a torrent than to rip all those CDs. Same thing with your burnt CDs, and your backups - legal to do yourself, but not to download. If you want the convenience of a digital backup you should either do it yourself, or buy one, but don't use a pirate service and claim "it's the same as doing it myself", because it's not the same, convenience is the difference and convenience is part of what online media sales are about.

But there's no copyrights or exclusivity rights on convenience.
My mother got good speakers for her computer for christmas. She asked me to RIP her CDs. So that would wrong? She didn't pay for that convenience.

You're probably going to say that it ok since I did it for her. But isn't it the same with torrents? A community of strangers are giving convenience to other, sharing easiness of life. They gave to him what I gave to her.

 

[Something Amyss]

It's legal in most places. Even the US (I think).

Wrong. It's not legal to download or distribute in the US, even if you bought the CD. I know you covered distribution, but the other part is also an issue.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

Yeah that should be ok to do if you do own a copy of the material and can prove this; then it should not count as piracy. Though I avoid the hassle and possible sticky legal issues and back up all my music to external hard drives.

In some countries, even ripping them is illegal.

If you own it, I personally think you are entitled to a backup copy of it. Doesn't really matter how you obtain the backup so long as you still own the original and didn't sell it on.

"...and I honestly did not include any albums I did not own." We believe you

Yeah I remember a law being change here in the UK a few years ago because it was technically illegal to rip CD you legally bought under the previous law, though it was never enforced.