My Copy Rights

I love my iPod, but I’m faced with a dilemma concerning some of my music files: I didn’t buy them.

When I purchase copyrighted music, what am I purchasing?

Obviously, I am purchasing the media: a CD, an actual disc, with a case, and artwork, and packaging. In an extended sense, I am also purchasing the effort required to bring it to the store where I buy it. And not to forget the artist, I am purchasing the performance itself from the musicians.

But I am also purchasing the right to play the music, as often as I want, anywhere I want, with anyone else present with whom I want to enjoy it.

When the media changes, such as with the wane of vinyl and the advent of CDs, do I cede my rights to play the music?

In the olden days, I would unfortunately have to repurchase the music if I wanted to play it on the new media. A vinyl record just wouldn’t work in a CD player, and there was nothing I could do to make it work in the CD player. If I wanted to play the music in the CD player, I had to purchase new media.

Tucked into the cost of that new media, however, was a small amount set aside that included a repurchase of my right to play it. It was a nominal amount, so while I grumbled that I had to purchase the music again, I went along.

With CDs, however, there’s a little hiccup to my advantage. I can make my CD media work on my iPod. I can convert the CD into an .mp3 file, rather easily, through a process called “ripping.”

I think this is legal to do, so long as I have a legitimate and legal copy to start from.

But why would this be legal?

Well, because I already have a legal copy. That is to say, I already own the right to play the music. So, I have not ceded my right to play the music just because the media changed.

Now, what if I own a bunch of vinyl records; shouldn’t I, then, be entitled to updated media? Well, no, because there is all that materials and handling cost associated with the media.

Oh yes, I am paying for materials costs when I purchase a CD, that’s right. And arguably the production costs account for the majority of the cost associated with that media.

But what if I don’t want a CD and all of that media and its associated costs? What if all I want is an .mp3 file? Certainly a single .mp3 file—which can be replicated millions and millions of times and delivered to me at almost no cost—should be offered to me at a commensurate fraction of price.

And yet, I am required, once again, to repurchase the music, and my right to play it, at price rates comparable to purchasing CD media.

Seems like someone is being “ripped” here, certainly.

I believe as long as the music industry maintains its “olden days” mentality, which requires you to repurchase your rights along with new media, that there will be a robust underground of ripped music, an underground which represents individual efforts to reclaim rights.