And I see an obvious moral issue…and what you see as perfectly fine I see as clearly wrong.
I see no problem with lending a friend a CD I purchased as long as he does not intend to rip it. But, I would never give a friend a copy of a CD or ripped files from a CD. That’s just wrong. Plain and simple.
In the USA, it is clearly illegal to copy a CD for a friend. That is not a debatable point. Just because it is difficult to enforce copyright laws does not mean “It simply doesn’t matter legally.” That is a ridiculous assertion which gives me a strong indication of the morales, or lack thereof, behind the person making such a claim.
We, as a group, should push a morality that says copying CDs is ethically and morally wrong.
The law becomes irrelevant if it can’t be enforced. And clearly, this law is rarely enforced. That fundamental reality negates law from having anything but ceremonial value on this topic.
That leaves morality. And that is entirely personal. I celebrate your right to take a position that appears moral, to you. But it really only has jurisdiction over you, as all moral positions, unto themselves, only have jurisdiction over the one who perceived them.
Beyond that, we simply disagree. I have no desire to convert you to my perception. I encourage you to be true to yourself.
And to reiterate, because music is now largely free, I know no one who is interested in me copying a CD for them.
Feels like I’m in a time warp. The points you’re making were very relevant, 15 to 20 years ago. It’s all different now. The music industry itself now gives the music away for free, or for a nominal fee. This has all been settled, with yet more downward pressure on prices to come.
No! That statement is true only if enforcement is the only reason you obey the law. That may be you but it is certainly not me.
I won’t steal from someone just because I won’t get punished. I don’t steal because it is wrong.
Law is a vast topic. Just because something is law does not inherently make it moral or right. The law allowed for slavery, it allowed blatant discrimination, with many variations across the world, and history. The holocaust was legal in Germany at the time. So a moral person ought to look at law more deeply than whether or not it’s a law.
We all have the sovereign right to decide whether or not a law is just, and whether or not to obey it. We must also consider the consequences of disobeying a law and decide if we want to deal with them.
That’s an individual process. I don’t speed because I don’t want a ticket, not because I think it’s not ok to speed a little. I’m not a murderer not because it’s illegal, but rather because it goes against my moral foundation.
I see my stance on maintaining the right to copy cds to give away, that no one wants to receive, as a very harmless position, by any measure.
Obviously I am talking about stealing here. Even in the oldest known code of laws of mankind, the Code of Ur-Nammu, stealing was considered wrong. Stealing has been considered wrong in every code of laws since. Stealing has been considered wrong and immoral for our entire recorded history.
You have no sovereignty over the justness of a law. Only your opinion of the law. If you had sovereignty, you could never be prosecuted for disobeying it.
Your arguments here are specious…
Haha, that’s funny. You are proving my point. The law no longer prosecutes someone for copying a CD to give to their friend, assuming they could find someone who wants that copied CD. This in fact gives all of us sovereignty, by practicality, over this specific law, because there is no prosecution.
The truth of the matter is that everyone has the right to break the law. Absolutely everyone. There is no law that has ever been written that has prevented someone from breaking it. By human right, everyone has the sovereignty to decide for themselves whether or not a law is just, and whether or not to break it.
Consequences are a different matter. Society can potentially implement consequences, though it does so in an often fickle way. Each person must decide if they want to deal with those consequences prior to breaking their law of choice.
Laws are created by humans to govern other humans. Humans are flawed creatures, and therefore, as history has proven, their laws are a mixed bag when it comes to either morality or justice.
The overriding issue is that you are entitled to your point of view. It is your own, and only has influence over you. Others are entitled to their opinion, even if, God forbid, it differs from yours. I fully respect your point of view, but simply beg to differ.
Caveat Emptor: This is the internet. There will always be different opinions on the internet 
Don’t confuse the capability to break the law with the right to break the law. Your arguments are flawed.
@dancingsea. For all the effort your putting in to talk about freely giving music away how about just reading the title of this thread. I live in the US/ Elknation. It doesn’t cost much at all to legally share Tidals streaming services and your friends can have thousands of album’s to listen to legally.
You’ll be pleased to know that I do subscribe to Tidal. While I’ve not read through the specific terms and conditions, I don’t think Tidal Family is intended for non-family members. It’s called the Tidal “Family” plan, not the Tidal “Friends & Family” plan. But I appreciate your willingness to skirt rules and share music on a profoundly more prolific scale than my hypothetical one CD. Your idea shares 6 million actual CDs instead of one hypothetical. Because it’s difficult for Tidal to verify actual legal family lineages of users, what you are suggesting is likely technically legal. But it’s scope infinitely dwarfs my tiny proposal.
Following the Elksylvania line of thinking, we all ought to have our own separate, full fledge Tidal accounts. That would translate into $120 per month towards the industry instead of $30/ month.
Really, my primary point is to think for yourselves and do what you feel is right, and respect others if they see it differently. We all know how these discussions go. There’s a small, but militant group who insists sharing a CD is stealing. There are those in the middle who are more relaxed. And those on the extreme who downloaded 300TB of high res music. Each level has their own belief systems and rationales. Blah, blah, blah.
I honesty don’t care what any of you do. Be true to yourselves. Be as fair and moral as you know how to be. And accept that none of us are the divine arbiter of it all. Beyond that, have at it!
It’s so funny, early on I posted the idea of gaming the Tidal family plan. I was surprised when the anti music stealing gestapo didn’t swoop in. That idea was procuring 36 million CD’s for $5 per month, per person (6 million CDs per person). Because it’s mostly legal, no one raised an eyebrow. The ability to procure such an outrageous deal is directly related to torrenting. There would be no such deal without the existence of torrent websites. Yet you guys are very willing to accept that deal, a deal brokered by illegal outside pressure. Yes, it’s “legal”, but it’s genesis was not 
Mention the hypothetical, not actual, but hypothetical sharing of one lone CD, and everyone freaks out!
Has to be a psychology study in there somewhere. You’re content to reap the fruit of torrenting, of file sharing in the form of these absurdly low priced music services, yet condemn the activity that made those deals possible. Seems hypocritical to me.
I do speculate that the music services have put a dent in torrenting. If someone has 300TB of ill gotten music stored on google for which they pay hundreds of dollars per month for storage, paying $20 bucks to Tidal or Quboz makes way more sense. Simpler, and less expensive, no storage to worry about, available on the go, and way better organized.
The ability to add 5 people at $2 per month, per person, for the high res plan, is made 100% possible by torrenting websites. Think how absurd that price is, you can give you friends access to 60 million songs for $2 per month.
The record labels did not come to this willingly. They did so because torrenting, and a substantial slice of the population forced them to. It was done with a Blockbuster Video type gun to their head. Adapt quickly or face extinction.
Recorded music is now free, or nearly free. Worrying about one lone CD has such little meaning. It’s like worrying about one grape when the whole vineyard has been foreclosed and grapes are being given away by the owners.
Y’all are missing the big picture. Your music service of choice is the child of file sharing, plain and simple. The music industry couldn’t beat the torrent sites, so they became a torrent site themselves in which a nominal fee is charged to be a member. The services are a professionally produced torrent machine.
Great discussion. I’ve actually moved a little bit in my stance after reading it. How often does that happen on a forum?
The law is difficult. Digital copies vs analog copies. Fascinating how the difference between the 2 create cognitive issues. There is an entire book(or more) worth of discussion here, but I’ve had a few so I won’t interject too much.
I will ask this though: how many of you in the “stealing is stealing” camp do any of the following:
speed, roll through stop signs, turn right on red…insert traffic violation
I’m already getting bored…so google stupid laws and tell me how many you would break. Just be honest. What do you do that isn’t strictly legal(don’t actually answer if it’s legit illegal 
)?
Judge Dredd is a satirical character for a reason.
Illegally copying one lone CD is still stealing. You are arguing that it is just a small theft that no one will notice so it is okay in your mind. It seems your personal morals on stealing move based on severity and likelihood of being caught and prosecuted. What other areas of your morality fall into this pattern?
When you give some one your word, how much is that worth? If it would benefit you to break your word and the person you gave you word would not find out about it, I suppose your figure it is okay to break your word.
Stealing is not the same thing as speeding. Not even close. Stealing is something humans have hated since man formed social groups. In fact, being against killing and against stealing are universal norms for human ethics and morality in every culture.
So let’s not go making illogical and fallacious arguments lie this.
You are of course right. Stealing is not speeding. Jay walking is not speeding. Murder is not manslaughter. These are all perfectly accurate statements. Heck, even stealing isn’t stealing(grand theft with 3 different degrees, petit theft with 2 degrees)! Stealing a cd is not the same as stealing a firearm. Stealing a cd is not the same as stealing a one of a kind priceless artifact.
Breaking the law is…breaking the law, though? I suppose not really. Do a quick internet search of outdated laws still on the books, and you’ll find plenty that are still there, but not enforced. And for good reason. One of my favorites was something like it’s illegal to train a dog in some town on the east coast.
This is a bit pedantic, but “being against killing and stealing are not universal norms for human ethics and morality in every culture.” I wish it were true, but it’s not even close.
For the record, I started this in the camp of copying cd’s is bad/stealing, and I am still there for the most part. I do now agree, at least a bit, that it’s somewhat of a distinction without a difference. It is a very good topic for abstract thought/discussion.
To you. And to an outdated law that cannot, is not, and will not be enforced. Until very recently, same sex marriage was illegal. As Narbooty points out, using law as proof something is moral or not, is fool hearty.
The other side of the coin is that I paid for a CD, I own it, and if I want to give a copy to a friend I ought to have that right. And doing so benefits the artist through promotion, and is an overall act of kindness - even though no one is interested in receiving it. That a draconian law that prevents that is unreasonable and has been essentially struck down by the Supreme Court of The Universe.
And as detailed above, you are missing the forest for the trees, stuck on an ideological point that has lost practical meaning in the modern times. The music services, albeit legal, rip off artist on a scale infinitely more vast than theoretically copying one CD.
And in the end, we all must discern for ourselves. If you feel copying a lone CD is stealing, I highly recommend you not do it 
Stealing is a violation of fundamental human moral code and has been for as long as we have organized into social groups. Jaywalking does violate the traffic code but is hardly a violation of longstanding moral code. You know there is a difference.
You seem to think that the moral code of the group does not exist and only your personal moral code matters. You personal moral code is certainly all you. But, you live in a society that has a moral code as well and society still says that stealing is wrong. If you want to be accepted in society you need to operate within the societal moral code.
By the way, artists may not be getting the money they deserve from streaming services, but everyone is operating under contracts and have legal remedies if the contracts are not being followed. If the artists don’t like the contracts, they should not be signing them.
Society has effective demeaned that copying a CD to give away is not stealing. That law has been rendered moot and meaningless. It’s just meaningless print on paper.
I have detailed my position on societal laws and personal morality. It’s a sophisticated position that I need not repeat.