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Moral/Legal Question ? Recording Streaming Music

It's up to the individual, as is everything else. I break a lot of laws everyday driving, nothing to be proud of, when it comes to music I want to have a copy of I try to pay for it if it's available.
Like others have said, if recording something for personal use is your worst crime than you aren't going to hell for it. Asking for a moral compass on an internet site may alleviate some guilt but you're bound to get flamed no matter where you stand.

Edit: Let me go one step further and say in my world there's plenty of things that are illegal and moral and even more things that are legal and immoral.
 
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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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Heisenberg's uncertainty principle might be at play. Myself, for personal use, I wouldn't think twice about it, even sharing on a CD with a close friend or two. It really isn't any difference than making a mix tape. Selling it, that's different.
 
I used to wonder the same thing, but then realized that there is no need to make a copy as long as you can access the content online. That's part of the reason phones don't need microSD cards anymore as folks are getting savvy to keeping stuff in the cloud and don't need to have content physically present on their devices.
For the bulk of my listening I have internet access, either WiFi or phone access. When I travel I do have some Spotify content downloaded and a couple recordings on my phone to get me thorough the dead zones.
 
This country, for better or worse, was built on rebellion. I think making recordings of streaming music for yourself is pretty small rebellion wise. If it's for personal use, it's a moral issue for oneself and illegal yes, but probably way under the radar...unlike speeding if there is radar...couldn't help myself. Distribution, though, that is where you've crossed these music service's line. Even if it is just sending to a friend.
 
swechsler said:
Some services already allow you to retain offline copies of music. IANAL, but my guess is that it wouldn't be illegal as long as you continued to maintain a subscription to the service, and IMO it certainly wouldn't be immoral if you still paid for it.
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The law may have changes since the 70's, but this would be an interpretation of streaming/digital consistent the legal interpretation about recording vinyl to cassette back in the day. As long as you retained all copies for personal use, it was legal. If you recorded and gave a copy to someone else, it was illegal. This allowed us to record records to cassette for use in our cars.
 
The only moral issue is if the price you pay "per listen" is lower than the price you'd pay if you bought the data outright. Then the justification of "I'm just making a personal backup" becomes weak. But I'm not anal about this stuff at all. As we speak I'm ripping DVD movies so I can edit them to make them suitable for viewing with my kids. But I bought the DVDs. I could have borrowed them from the local public library system. But I'd feel like a rat.
 
loopstick said:
The only moral issue is if the price you pay "per listen" is lower than the price you'd pay if you bought the data outright. Then the justification of "I'm just making a personal backup" becomes weak. But I'm not anal about this stuff at all. As we speak I'm ripping DVD movies so I can edit them to make them suitable for viewing with my kids. But I bought the DVDs. I could have borrowed them from the local public library system. But I'd feel like a rat.
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Also, each time you stream a song, the artist gets paid. So if you burned it to a CD and listen to that instead of the stream, the artist is not getting paid each time you play it.
 
WillVT said:
Also, each time you stream a song, the artist gets paid. So if you burned it to a CD and listen to that instead of the stream, the artist is not getting paid each time you play it.
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True. You're basically paying to have your ears "serviced". You're not paying for the data. You're paying to have the data run through your ears. The experience.
 
Back in 1976 I Paid ASCAP and BMI for eternal rights to any VINYL LP or 45 I had bought and played for DJ use. I think it was $365 but that was around 50 years ago. I have almost 6 K LP's and 2K CDs and 14K digital tunes. The fun is knowing which combination of cart, tone arm and preamp gets the music into the computer.
 
If the question is "morality," making a copy of a song, album, music played on a streaming service is theft.
When you play the "burned' copy vs. steaming it again, the streaming service doesn't see that play, so the artist is getting no payment for that play.
It's basically theft and you are cheating the artist of payment.
Period.

The other side of that is when you buy a used CD (or LP or DVD, etc.) somewhere,
you pay less than the retail price and the artist is not getting anything from that secondary sale.
 
hjames said:
If the question is "morality," making a copy of a song, album, music played on a streaming service is theft.
When you play the "burned' copy vs. steaming it again, the streaming service doesn't see that play, so the artist is getting no payment for that play.
It's basically theft and you are cheating the artist of payment.
Period.
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I'm guessing when one downloads music from Tidal for offline play, Tidal can track it for payments.
 
Frank Sol said:
How about capturing for private personal use ?
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The courts have decided that one. It's fine.

A lot of people don't know this but the folks that got into trouble regarding Napster and Limewire were the ones that others could download from them. THAT was what they were sued for. If you copied millions of songs, and they KNEW you did, but nobody could download them from you, they left you alone.
 
hjames said:
If the question is "morality," making a copy of a song, album, music played on a streaming service is theft.
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Morality is subjective. Though I generally agree with you somewhat on this issue, I've said for decades that "what's moral isn't necessary legal and what's legal isn't necessarily moral."

And when it comes to morality, we each get to decide on our own which source of morality we most respect and try to follow.
 
Just doing a Google search on the matter doesn't really turn up anything concrete about the legalities, but rather how doing so goes against the rules of the company offering the streaming service.

Amazon has their own rules for their music service

amzmusic.PNG .
 
CraigVMN said:
Amazon has their own rules for their music service
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As I said earlier, that's within their app, managed by the app. note the phrase "It's not possible to export titles for use on other apps and devices. Amazon Music Unlimited titles can't be copied onto CDs or other external storage".

This is a technically enforced restriction, not an instruction as to what you are, or are not, allowed to do.
 
JP said:
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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If the music being copied if from a legit source purchased album ,radio paid for by commercial s or utube which is also paid for by commercials ,and it’s for strictly personal use I have no problem with it ,but if its bootlegged movies or music or unauthorized copy’s for sale then it’s down right theft !
 
ernieb1536 said:
If the music being copied if from a legit source purchased album ,radio paid for by commercial s or utube which is also paid for by commercials ,and it’s for strictly personal use I have no problem with it ,but if its bootlegged movies or music or unauthorized copy’s for sale then it’s down right theft !
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YouTube monetization would compensate the rights holder for that single play only, which would be far, far less than what they'd get from a song or album purchase. That it's 'paid for' for one usage doesn't necessarily make them whole for a different usage.
 
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