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Moral/Legal Question ? Recording Streaming Music

I grew up taping media to my car from records using cassettes and no one cared and it was legal. Then the politicians were bought off by the entertainment industry. I think the recording for one self's use with physical media is fine. My car has a 40G HD. I USB'd some favorite albums and playlists from CDs/iTunes and loaded into the car. It's great when you are in No-Receptionland.

I think prosecution-wise, they are looking for distribution over self use.

At least Tidal, and I haven't checked Qobuz, allows downloading on your device.
 
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CraigVMN said:
I think the better (legal) question is - does the action constitute stealing? That would be a matter for lawyers & a judge to decide.
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Does it matter if it constitutes stealing in the eyes of the law? Is criminal law the only aspect that one should be concerned with?
 
JP said:
Does it matter if it constitutes stealing in the eyes of the law? Is criminal law the only aspect that one should be concerned with?
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Are you a lawyer or just playing devils advocate here? It sounds like you’re suggesting that recording is a crime and should be treated as such. If that’s the case then that’s great for you but trying to convince audiophiles that recoding music is a crime is MASSIVE waste of breath.
 
BamaBilly said:
If that’s the case then that’s great for you but trying to convince audiophiles that recoding music is a crime is MASSIVE waste of breath
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Given the amount of hand-wringing that goes on regarding how little artists are paid per stream, I would have thought people might be concerned about not paying artists for effectively downloading their work, just like from a torrent site.

But maybe not.
 
cpt_paranoia said:
Given the amount of hand-wringing that goes on regarding how little artists are paid per stream, I would have thought people might be concerned about not paying artists for effectively downloading their work, just like from a torrent site.

But maybe not.
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When there was actual media, there wasn't a problem recording as artists sued and started making money and labels always did, so there wasn't going after the guy who owned the media. With iTunes that all changed as the cash flow started to diminish greatly for artists and the record labels. Now, who owns the media? If you stream, no one really.
 
Danddd said:
Now, who owns the media? If you stream, no one really.
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The artist and their record label.

Streaming gives you a licence to play their music, on a per play basis. It does not give you a licence to permanently download that music, and then cancel your subscription. Those are the T&Cs you agree to.

In the days of people copying their records for friends, those records were bought, at the retail price. This is/was significantly more than a streaming play payment; today, it's about £30 vs, say 10p for a ten track album. I doubt many people made 30 copies of an album. Even considering track download prices, they're about 50p-£1 per track, vs a penny-ish for a track stream fee.
 
cpt_paranoia said:
Given the amount of hand-wringing that goes on regarding how little artists are paid per stream, I would have thought people might be concerned about not paying artists for effectively downloading their work, just like from a torrent site.

But maybe not.
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Again, recording has always happened. I’m not sure why you think there’s a problem just because it’s streaming. People have always recorded off the radio, used to anyway. I would also say most people recoding from a streaming service also probably pay for at least the basic subscription, which makes it better than recording off of free radio, right? We all choose our profession and very few people are paid what they’re actually worth. If me recording a song makes it hard for an artist to make a living then that’s unfortunate for them to be in such an unstable profession.
 
BamaBilly said:
I’m not sure why you think there’s a problem just because it’s streaming
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I'm just giving the arguments that can be used. Everyone can make their own judgement about the moral or civil (or criminal, depending on jurisdiction) legal situation.

One way recording digital streaming different is that the recording, being digital, is a perfect copy. Recording onto tape, from CD, vinyl or radio is imperfect. Remember those expensive CDDA-Rs for CD recorders? Argued for due to the ability to make perfect copies.
 
BamaBilly said:
Are you a lawyer or just playing devils advocate here? It sounds like you’re suggesting that recording is a crime and should be treated as such. If that’s the case then that’s great for you but trying to convince audiophiles that recoding music is a crime is MASSIVE waste of breath.
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Been pretty clear that IANAL, and no, I'm not playing devils advocate. As a general rule I avoid breaching or defaulting on agreements that I've entered in to.

BamaBilly said:
If me recording a song makes it hard for an artist to make a living then that’s unfortunate for them to be in such an unstable profession.
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I guess the owner of a convenience store that is having trouble making ends meet due to shrinkage is at fault for having an unstable profession?

17 U.S.C. 1008 purportedly says that non-commercial copying by consumers of digital and analog musical recordings is not copyright infringement. However every streaming service TOS I've ever read forbids it. So you're not infringing copyright, but are breaching a contract.

The bottom line with these types of discussions is that people will use any measure of circular reasoning and broken logic to justify their behaviors.
 
JP said:
Been pretty clear that IANAL, and no, I'm not playing devils advocate. As a general rule I avoid breaching or defaulting on agreements that I've entered in to.



I guess the owner of a convenience store that is having trouble making ends meet due to shrinkage is at fault for having an unstable profession?

17 U.S.C. 1008 purportedly says that non-commercial copying by consumers of digital and analog musical recordings is not copyright infringement. However every streaming service TOS I've ever read forbids it. So you're not infringing copyright, but are breaching a contract.

The bottom line with these types of discussions is that people will use any measure of circular reasoning and broken logic to justify their behaviors.
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If you want to follow laws to the letter and call yourself a better person for it, that’s great. I don’t look to the government/law makers to tell me what’s right and wrong. I just use good ol’ “broken logic”.
 
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As an interesting aside, I just looked to see if Spotify as an example includes offline streams in an artist's play count, and indeed yes, they do. Personally, if I am already paying for a streaming service, I would like to do what I can to help artists get paid as much as possible, which admittedly is pretty paltry.
I'm sure some folks have their reasons to record off a streaming source, but I can't think of any for myself. To burn a CD? My Macbook doesn't even have a disc drive. My phone is always with me. Why would I need a song from a streaming source outside of my home on any other media?
 
cpt_paranoia said:
The artist and their record label.

Streaming gives you a licence to play their music, on a per play basis. It does not give you a licence to permanently download that music, and then cancel your subscription. Those are the T&Cs you agree to.

In the days of people copying their records for friends, those records were bought, at the retail price. This is/was significantly more than a streaming play payment; today, it's about £30 vs, say 10p for a ten track album. I doubt many people made 30 copies of an album. Even considering track download prices, they're about 50p-£1 per track, vs a penny-ish for a track stream fee.
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I was actually speaking to the media purchased, such as a record, cassette or CD. While streaming, you own nothing media-wise. Obviously the artist and label own (depending on their agreements of course) their material.
 
RickB said:
Same reasoning resulted in the "Music CD-R" format for home CD recorders...a royalty fee on every blank CD scheme was implemented so that regular computer CD-Rs couldn't be used in consumer CD reorders.

.
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IMO/E that restriction only facilitated the sale of CD burners for a PC. The drives were and still are a lot cheaper (currently <$50) than a stand alone audio CD burner. The blank disks for PC's have always been much cheaper. You can buy 50 Imation CD-R's from Amazon for $10.79.

I recently bought a PC Blu-ray burner for $69 for a new gaming PC I'm building. Incidentally, the price of TOTL graphics cards has gone through the roof.
 
BamaBilly said:
My logic is clearly broken yet, you seem to be the only person scared of making a recording.
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Can your dad beat up my dad? JFC.

It's really simple: when I enter in to an agreement, I honor it. Any possible gray area between copyright law and contract law is moot to me due to the fact that the rights holders are not compensated, which is a form of theft. If it's civil and not criminal, that some consider it victimless, that the chances of being caught are nil, or that the consequences are de minimis doesn't change what it is.

If integrity is frightening, color me petrified.
 
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