dead sun's Journal: Digital Audio Question

I'm certainly no lawyer, though I try to keep a tab on what's legal to keep my bases covered. Anyway, I have a question that I'm hoping somebody, somewhere can answer (or at least a few responses of it's a grey area, go find a lawyer).

The question: Is it legal to make a digital copy (mp3, ogg, wav) of a song you record off the radio and store it on your home computer?

It seems that if one is interested in popular music there would be no associated piracy risks to doing things this way. I'm pretty sure it is legal to make cassette recordings from the radio for personal use, so I'm having a hard time believing a simple extension would be so difficult. I guess a further question is which bands are covered, for example, is XM radio covered in this?

Anybody have an answer?

The Very Fine Line

[Oculus Habent]

I found some thoughts [pbs.org] surrounding the matter, and possibly answers your question:

The Audio Home Recording Act permits individuals who are using special Digital Audio Recording Devices (such as Mini-Disc Players or Digital Audio Tape Recorders) to make limited copies for their "noncommercial" personal use. It does not permit individuals to make copies on other digital devices for distribution to friends or other people.

This may cover the computer as a digital recording device, but I would recommend scrut

Re:The Very Fine Line

[dead sun]

Actually had found that very same site earlier, complete with it's funky colors, but I get tripped up in what they actually mean, and whether or not a computer is too generic of a device or is possibly even a professional tool.

I'd only be wanting to make copies for myself to listen to, or for the limited audience that is in my residence, which seems to be perfectly legal with a plain old analog tape deck. Given mp3 and ogg do not preserve sound perfectly I'd hope it would be a similar thing, but I'm not sur

Re:The Very Fine Line

[Jamuraa]

A computer is NOT covered as a recording device in the AHRA. It is too general of a tool (it is, entirely possible to use a computer all your life and never even hear a sound come out of it). This was established a while back, and is why there is no built-in tax on CD-Rs like there is on cassette tapes.

As for using your minidisc to record and then put it on your computer -- you are allowed to do such "space-shifting" thing such as this. You can put the songs on your computer, and mix CDs out of music y

Re:The Very Fine Line

[dead sun]

Thank you, that's the sort of thing I was looking for. I thought it would be odd if I couldn't move music to a different medium, though I'm sure the industry would rather that. Nearly all my music is currently tucked away where people not in my music group cannot see it, so I think I'm good there.

I also wonder if they would bother checking bitwise comparisons between songs on a drive and songs that can be found on a P2P network. Though in that case, if it is directly from the CD rips I suppose you'd have a

Re:The Very Fine Line

[Oculus Habent]

I would theorize that copies of legally obtained music, as long as they are solely for personal, private use, should be fine. As for professional tool, that is terribly vague as far as computers go. Just don't use any Sun or SGI hardware. :)

Reason for Asking

[dead sun]

Perhaps I should include a reason for asking the question. I'm disturbed by the current litigousness of our not so friendly recording industry. I run a decent sized network in my apartment, and will, at some point probably soon, be putting in a wireless access point.

I don't really want to close my access point completely, nor with generic ones am I certain I can authenticate on MAC address only which seems to be the only way, but given the way the RIAA is looking to litigate I may have to just to protect my