Pretty sure that's illegal. Does anyone make money when you download songs off a torrent?

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Yea... I'm pretty sure that's illegal. I think, but am not sure about this one, that it's legal to share with people in the same household as you (direct family, i guess). But friends is illegal, unfortunately.

That's definitely illegal. It's not that the person giving it to you isn't making money, it's that the record company isn't receiving money from you receiving the music, meaning no sale for them. You may never get caught for an act like that, but it's certainly illegal.

I'm pretty sure the RIAA doesn't even want you burning music from your cd's onto your computer.

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Illegal for sure

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Warning: Usual JCoolKatZerg long informative post to follow. Skip to * for the quick answer. Also, I'm going to assume USA copyright law here (seeing as your location is marked Georgia). Additional warnings here, I am not a lawyer and most of this info has come from sifting through slashdot and a user there (NewYorkCounrtyLawyer) who is a lawyer in court cases against the MPAA and RIAA. This is not legal advice, etc...

In the US, you are only allowed to make a copy of media** that you own as long as it is for personal use and/or for the act of using*** the media. Sharing from your computer to your mp3 player is ok: it's a personal use. Sharing with your family/household is also classified as personal, and has so far been upheld in court as such. Sharing with a friend is not, even though there is no money involved. The only part of the law where money is involved is under the right of first sale. A good discription of what this means can be found on wikipedia:

Your friend has the right to sell you his music, so long as he/she does not retain any copies for himself, and he/she only has the right to sell you the orriginal copy of the music, and not a 'bootleg' copy he/she has made.

*SO, yes, what you are doing is quite illegal under the current US copyright law. If you don't like it, write to your congresscritter, and if/when you are 18, vote for the people who will change the law to the way you see fit.


**Media is very loosely defined by the law here. This is how one could argue that making a personal 'backup' of a game/DVD/CD is legal, however, only the backup of music (all forms) and videos (in the form of VHS, only) have every been upheld in court under this use. Games and 'digital' videos have not had a precedent set to my knowlage.

***Example: in order for your computer to play a CD, the contents of the song file must first be copied to ram in order to be processed and modulated to your speakers. This is an essential step to using the media, and thus legal under the current law.

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Gah! Your right! Apple says that you can copy purchased song up to 7 times for personal, non-commercial use only.

What if my gf gave me her iTunes library? Would that be considered personal use?

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Wait, if you're trying to rip music off your iPod then good luck. Apple doesn't take to kindly to doing so.

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