SadGamerGeek;149287 Wrote: > I'm half way through a re-rip of all (about 550) my CDs to FLAC. I'm > planning on also keeping a backup of them at another location (probably > work) in case of theft/fire etc. > > At the moment, I've paid a bit more on my house insurance to ensure > that all my CDs are covered. I've just thought that there's no need to > do that anymore though. If my CDs get stolen it won't be the end of the > world as my FLACs would be backups (shame about all the artwork etc...) > and I never play the physical disks since having squeezeboxes anyway. > > Anyway...... What would be the ethics (and indeed legal position) of me > continuing to use all my music from the FLAC files when I no longer > owned the original CDs due to theft? > > Discuss.......
That's an interesting one. At first sight, it is clear: if you 'got rid' of the CDs, you would have 'got rid' of the right to play them. Thus if you sell them, you lose the right to play the music. However, insurance claims may be more complicated than that. Insurance covers the replacement cost of material products; the intangible copyright usage is not something that you could insure. So the process could be: - You own CDs and have the ripped files: no problem (but see below) - Your CDs are pinched: you still own the right to play the files; the thief does not acquire this right, just as he does not own the physical CDs - Your insurance pays up for your replacement physical CDs, but you don't buy them as you don't need them. The controversial issues: - Does the insurance claim cover the CD replacement or is it an overall payment for your loss? If they give you a lump sum, loss-adjusted of course, you could argue the latter, in which case you never lost the right to play the files. So you're fine. - If they pay you for the CDs (i.e. the former, above), are you committing insurance fraud by claiming for something (i.e. the music) that you have not really lost? - Do you have the right to rip files anyway? The music rights you acquire on a CD are for this CD, not for the music itself. Otherwise, you might have the right to a new medium when this one is scratched, or when a new format comes out. Not likely! This links to one of my pet issues: if a CD gets damaged, do I really have to buy it again? Am I buying the medium or the music? I've answered it above, but I don't like it! Buying a CD gets you the CD itself, and the licence to play the music on it; if the former breaks, you implicitly lose the latter. Is this wrong? Anyway I think your issue is potentially one of insurance fraud rather than copyright theft; plus the legality of ripping at all... Adam -- adamslim SB3 and Shanling CDT-100, Rotel RT-990BX, Esoteric Audio Research 859, Living Voice Auditorium IIs, Nordost cables ------------------------------------------------------------------------ adamslim's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=7355 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=29003 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
