The Ethics of Burning CDs

Mar

24

The Ethics of Burning CDs

≡ Category: Loose Talk |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

I’m not talking about burning a 1) copy of a CD you own so you can have a copy to play in your car, 2) a mix CD of your favorite songs from your CD collection, 3) replacement CD for a store bought CD you own that doesn’t play (see my post CD Doesn’t Play - Don’t Throw it Out! for more details), or 4) a CDR of an LP that you want to be able to play on your CD player or in your car (see my post Taking Care of Your Old LPs - Transferring to CD). As far as I’m concerned, all of these situations are covered under fair use.

What I’m talking about is borrowing a CD (from a friend or from the your local library) and burning a copy for your personal use. Is there any way that can be okay?

First, let’s get one point out of the way. If you’re copying a CD that doesn’t belong to you, the record company isn’t getting paid, and neither is the artist who created the music. You are S-T-E-A-L-I-N-G, no ifs, ands or buts about it.

Now, if you consider stealing to be intrinsically wrong (if you are a practicing Christian, for example), that settles the question right there. No burning other people’s CDs for you. But if you subscribe to situational ethics, then it gets more complicated.

Let me give you a hypothetical example. Let’s say you go to the library and see a CD, Prietos by Omar Sosa, who you’ve never heard of, and it looks kind of interesting, so you borrow it. You’re not really sure if you like it, but you find a couple of songs on it to be amusing, so you burn them and put them on your iPod. Over time and with repetition, these songs really start to grow on you. You check out the CD again and this time, you really like it. You burn the whole thing.

Now, you go on Amazon.com and check the samples for ALL of Omar Sosa’s CDs because you’d like to own more music like Prietos. Ultimately, you end up buying several of Omar Sosa’s CDs.

If you had never burned those songs and put them on your iPod, you would never have bought those CDs and Omar would have that much less money in his pocket from those royalties. In a roundabout way, Sosa benefited from you stealing his songs. Does that make it okay that you burned his CD, Prietos, and didn’t pay for it?

Just asking.