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Topic: Question about vinyl rips. (Read 36433 times) previous topic - next topic
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Question about vinyl rips.

Hello folks,

I have some CDs dated from 1985-1994 and such. It comes to my attention that there are vinyl rips of the same CDs floating some places on the internet.
Some of the rips are superior to CD in terms of mastering: Pearl Jam's Ten CD vs. LP comes to mind. I've heard both and the CD has been clearly abused and bass is lacking a bit, even on its first pressing.

Is it legal to obtain those rips, or do I actually need to acquire the same pressing LP which I am downloading?

As far as ripping myself, I would never have the gear or the time to do this...

( I couldn't search the "vinyl rip cd legal" keywors, the system wouldn't let me. Apparently there is a minimum size character policy. So I'm sorry if this has been answered somewhere here).

Thanks for answers.

Question about vinyl rips.

Reply #1
Many commercial CDs have been made from LPs and older than LP disks, entirely within the system, using legitimately acquired rights. If you mean, can you buy such music, the legal issues were taken care of up front.

If you mean, can you somehow acquire legitimacy from an illegal download server offering pirated production, because you legitimately purchased something similar elsewhere, you add up the logic.

Question about vinyl rips.

Reply #2
Technically it's illegal, since when you buy music, you're not buying a license like you do with software, you're buying an actual specific reproduction of the music. Think of it as a hardware rather than software purchase. That means you're not strictly allowed to download the music, even if you already own a copy of the album, even if it is the very same edition that you already own.

On the other hand, I have a hard time imagining anyone would pursue legal action because you downloaded a vinyl version of an album you already own on CD. However, if you distribute a copy, that's a wholly different matter and you could face serious repercussions.

Question about vinyl rips.

Reply #3
Some of the rips are superior to CD in terms of mastering


And when you buy a CD, you pay for the work of all those involved in the production of the CD. That doesn't cover the work of all those involved in the production of the vinyl record.

Question about vinyl rips.

Reply #4
Copyright laws are different in different countries, so it would be surprising if there was one correct answer to this question the world over. I think most people have answered accurately for the majority situation though.


In the UK, until very recently, it was illegal to rip your own CD for your own personal use (or copy your own LP onto a cassette tape to listen to in your own car). You will gather from this statement that I, and many other people in the UK, have wilfully broken UK copyright law for many years.

I think if someone takes the trouble to produce a superior product, then they deserve a financial reward. If the people who appreciate that product aren't paying for it, then they can't expect to see more of it.

However, the costs and practicalities of this situation have become quite stupid for someone who just wants a better sounding version on their PC or mp3 player, rather than specifically desiring a vinyl record or SACD. I have sympathy with your plight - but chances are it's not legal where you are.

Cheers,
David.

Question about vinyl rips.

Reply #5
Copyright laws are different in different countries, so it would be surprising if there was one correct answer to this question the world over. I think most people have answered accurately for the majority situation though.

Right. Without stating which country you live in it is hard to say if it's legal or not. There are countries where making copies (which includes downloading them from dubious sites) of music you already own is perfectly legal. There are even countries where downloading music you don't own is perfectly legal, as long as you don't upload them as distribution is illegal.
Every night with my star friends / We eat caviar and drink champagne
Sniffing in the VIP area / We talk about Frank Sinatra
Do you know Frank Sinatra? / He's dead

Question about vinyl rips.

Reply #6
Quote
Without stating which country you live in it is hard to say if it's legal or not.

His profile says he's in Brazil.

You need to look at the actual legal statutes in effect in that country, and whatever precedents have been set in court (if they have common law). There's a lot of folklore out there about what's "legal" that is really just wishful thinking, exacerbated by poorly researched media coverage.

For example, a few years ago, there was a lot of press saying that the UK got a private ripping exception. Actually, the government commissioned a late 2010 study (the Hargreaves Review), which led to a 2012 government report (Modernising Copyright). When the report came out, there was another round of press saying an exception was here, whereas the report only said there was an intent to pass legislation to that effect. The legislation wasn't even drafted until mid-2013, and it is still in the works, not yet law. So as they say on Wikipedia, "citation needed."

Question about vinyl rips.

Reply #7
Thanks for all replies.

Yes, I'm in Brazil.
For what I have known, I am entitled to have a backup copy of all my audio.
In terms of vinyl, arguments above make sense. The purchase would only be cosmetic, sice I would be using a copy of that in FLAC.
I think there are "cracks" in the law here so there may be no clear cut on this matter.

Question about vinyl rips.

Reply #8
So as they say on Wikipedia, "citation needed."
Well there you go - millions of us Brits are still criminals. As the Hargreaves Review pointed out, branding such a widely practised and morally defensible act as illegal makes a mockery of the entire copyright law. As does record companies buying a 20 year copyright extension.

Cheers,
David.

Question about vinyl rips.

Reply #9
At least you have a commitment to a smidgen of progress from a government & legislature that still, on occasion, gives consideration and weight to what is morally defensible and in the public interest. In my country, Congress can pretty much be relied upon to always side with the well-funded industries whose lobbyists roam the halls. If any course of action can be framed as a choice between "helping the economy" on one hand, and something that will benefit freeloaders and/or terrorists on the other, you can guess what the outcome is.

Question about vinyl rips.

Reply #10
The legislation wasn't even drafted until mid-2013, and it is still in the works, not yet law.

Regarding the proposed changes to the UK law, I linked to the wrong document. The proposals for reform are not being made via the Intellectual Property Bill, but rather through a set of Statutory Instruments that were finally presented for Parliament's review the day after I posted.


At both sites, look for the various "Draft Copyright and Rights in Performances" documents.

I haven't heard if there is any debate; I assume they're going to be approved soon. If approved, they go into force on June 1.

Question about vinyl rips.

Reply #11
I can understand the dilemma and frustration faced by the OP, because I have thought about this myself.
A recent experience I had. . .

Target Album:    Creedence Clearwater Revival — Cosmos Factory (1970)

Releases:
(1) Vinyl, Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab MFSL 1-037 (USA), Half-Speed Mastered LP (1980)
(2) CD, JVC VDP-5039 (JPN), 'C.C.R. CD Collection 5' (1986)
(3) SHM-CD, UCCO-9197 (JPN), '40th Anniversary Reissue' (2009)
(4) SACD, Analogue Productions CAPJ 8402 SA (USA), Remaster (2002)

I dragged the four releases into foobar2000 on a Windows XP box, using Kernel Streaming output to a powerful vintage solid-state class-A amplifier to high-end speakers in a small room with great acoustics giving me a very intimate audiophile experience.

I played and I played and I played all of them thoroughly, and took my time and slept over things and repeated things and compared things over a number of days, i.e., I made sure the first impression was not coloring my listening judgement.

As far as satisfying listens go, my order of preference ended up being:   (1),   (2),   (4),   (3)

In my opinion, to fully appreciate the music of Creedence Clearwater Revival, it is important that the mid-range and low-end bass 'thump' play a pronounced role in the sound stage...

(1) The Vinyl, stood out as the ONLY presentation of this album with that criteria; it also was the only release which made me want to play the album from start to finish without pressing STOP.

Conversely, the most striking thing about all three digital discs was the lack of drama from the bass tones.
(2) the CD, was very very close in listening satisfaction to the Vinyl....it had great clarity, but the bass 'thump' just lacked dramatic emphasis at the right moments.
(4) the SACD, was good but brought nothing memorable to the table over (1) and (2)
(3) the SHM-CD, was mastered loud; If you like normalized in-your-face music or if your hi-fi system needs a bit of a “boost” then this one would be a good choice, but it's not recommended if you are listening through an expensive pair of speakers in an optimized listening environment.

The lovely 1980 vinyl mastering by MFSL impressed me to the point of wanting to own an Audio CD of this. So I went looking on the internet to buy myself a CD version...and discovered that this mastering was NEVER RELEASED ON CD !!! .....So I contacted MFSL support and asked them about the chances of the 1980 mastering ever being reissued on CD,
and here was their reply:

> Thank you for your email. We appreciate the feedback and will pass it along.
> Please keep in mind that there are many contractual details involved with
> the release or re-release of any album that have nothing to do with sales.
> If we could simply release any past title again at any time, we surely would
> love to release that one again, but unfortunately that is not the case.
> Sorry.


So what is a person supposed to do when musical nirvana has so many glass walls and ceilings?

Question about vinyl rips.

Reply #12
I dragged the four releases into foobar2000 on a Windows XP box, using Kernel Streaming output to a powerful vintage solid-state class-A amplifier to high-end speakers in a small room with great acoustics giving me a very intimate audiophile experience.

I played and I played and I played all of them thoroughly, and took my time and slept over things and repeated things and compared things over a number of days, i.e., I made sure the first impression was not coloring my listening judgement.


It sounds like you had the time of your life but: isn't this audiophile "nirvana", as you call it, somehow way off-topic?

---

Krafty, we all know that here in Brazil authorities end up not giving a rat's back side to that sort of thing.

As I particularly haven't heard a thing about them coming up with any appropriate legislation regarding that yet, I very much doubt it it would be enforced had it already been drafted.

So: relaxa amigo* and let your conscience be the best judge!



*Even though anyone reading this have pretty much guessed it, it means "relax friend" - just to be TOS10-compliant.
Listen to the music, not the media it's on.
União e reconstrução

Question about vinyl rips.

Reply #13
Copyright laws are different in different countries


THE point.

But there is another point to make, for the general question although I have no idea of whether it ever applies to the special case of copyright laws:
Nothing prevents country C from criminalizing act A regardless of where and by whom it is committed. (I fact, when it comes to crimes against humanity, so will be the case in most jurisdictions except the largest, but I guess downloading does not qualify ... so there are bounds to lobbying power  .)

E.g., it is possible that a Brazilian citizen can sit in Brazil and download information from a .co.uk domain from a server hosted in the Netherlands - without violating any law in any of these countries - and still be in violation of North Korean law (just to pick a country that likely has nothing to do with the path of the data, and which is not unlikely to criminalize certain insulting content).

And the slightest connection to foreign ground could lead you into even greyer areas - for example, you could be in trouble if you take your legally obtained files abroad.

Question about vinyl rips.

Reply #14
Well there you go - millions of us Brits are still criminals. As the Hargreaves Review pointed out, branding such a widely practised and morally defensible act as illegal makes a mockery of the entire copyright law. As does record companies buying a 20 year copyright extension.

It is a failure of a particular democracy implementation and it makes a mockery of the whole state system. In case vast majority of people in a country deem something as "common practice", the laws should reflect such opinion. Why not initiate a referendum about that?

I don't know about UK but here in the Czech Republic, our political representation is basically a clique of people who line their own pockets first and do something for people second (some cheap "bribery" of citizens with unfulfilled promise of better tomorrow - just to get voted for). And we don't have a referendum law and politicians are actively blocking attempts at passing it.

Question about vinyl rips.

Reply #15
I haven't heard if there is any debate
You sound like you know more about this than I do, but I don't think Statutory Instruments need to be debated. Someone writes them and they become law (except in really rare circumstances - Parliament last blocked one in 2000 according to Wikipedia). I'd be astounded if someone tried to block this one.

So on 1st June, it will be legal to rip your own CDs in the UK. Absolutely no practical difference, except that the law will be slightly less of an ass after that date.


It's interesting to consider the international dimension. There's a whole bunch of recordings out of copyright in Europe which are still in copyright in the USA, and the RIAA supposedly doesn't like that one bit... http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/02/internat...02CND_COPY.html

I liked it before the EU countries agreed on copyright, and some EU countries set it at 25 years for live recordings. You could legally buy some great "bootlegs".

Cheers,
David.

Question about vinyl rips.

Reply #16
As a result of heavy industry lobbying copyright in the UK was extended from 50 to 70 years.

UK copyright law 2011


Question about vinyl rips.

Reply #17
Oh, I know that.

It's EU wide btw.

Question about vinyl rips.

Reply #18
As a result of heavy industry lobbying copyright in the UK was extended from 50 to 70 years.

UK copyright law 2011


The way I see it, copyright times being extended for so long, don't absolutely do the great public or the work itself any favour:

These heavily-lobbied laws are only passed for the sole purpose of making nasty middle-men even wealthier and to make sure the deceased artist's grand-children carry on with their posh lifestyles, happily milking this cash cow as if there were no tomorrow. All that (some widows and children apart) without having ever lifted a finger to contribute to said work.

If that ain't shamelessly exploiting an easy way to make money, I don't know what else is.
Listen to the music, not the media it's on.
União e reconstrução

Question about vinyl rips.

Reply #19
In case vast majority of people in a country deem something as "common practice", the laws should reflect such opinion.


I guess breaking certain traffic rules will count as "common practice", and ... people still understand that it is not a good idea to abolish them.

Question about vinyl rips.

Reply #20
I liked it before the EU countries agreed on copyright, and some EU countries set it at 25 years for live recordings. You could legally buy some great "bootlegs".


20 years was the minimum under the Rome convention, and then it didn't apply to older works. E.g. (W) Germany adopted the convention in 1966, and the IFPI famously took a Dylan bootleg to the Federal Supreme court and lost.

There is a book by Lee Marshall: "Bootlegging: Romanticism and Copyright in the Music Industry" (2005). Likely based on his 2001 thesis, http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/3068/1/WRAP_THES...rshall_2001.pdf . This is sociology, not law, but the round-up on legal status in chapter 8 is fascinating.

Question about vinyl rips.

Reply #21
I guess breaking certain traffic rules will count as "common practice", and ... people still understand that it is not a good idea to abolish them.
Could you give an example, please? Does a vast majority of car drivers really do that?

Question about vinyl rips.

Reply #22
The extension of Euro performers copyright from an already excessive 50 to an incredible 70 years (the 'industry' lobbyists wanted 95 like the States) was sold to the public on the basis that poor Bert Roady  who once played the triangle on a 6Ts B side aged 20 could really use the royalty cheque in his old age.

This of course is mainly bollocks. The Bert Roadys of this world end up needing cash money sooner rather than later. So they sell the rights back to the record company. Who then incorporates them into what are in effect financial instruments.

Composers still keep copyright for 70 years after their death. No idea what the rational behind that is. At all.

Question about vinyl rips.

Reply #23
Quote
Composers still keep copyright for 70 years after their death. No idea what the rational behind that is. At all.
Imagine that you and your wife (or husband) are 20 years old.  Your wife has just written a best-selling book, but she gets run-over by a bus the day before it's released.

Quote
This of course is mainly bollocks. The Bert Roadys of this world end up needing cash money sooner rather than later. So they sell the rights back to the record company. Who then incorporates them into what are in effect financial instruments.
If you wanted to sell the rights to your wife's book to get some cash NOW, and let someone else collect the royalties for 70 years, what's wrong with that?

Maybe 70 years is too long...  I don't know.  But, there is some rational behind it.

Question about vinyl rips.

Reply #24
With respect. I think you are missing the point Doug.

Of course it is possible to dream up circumstances where one might sympathise with the victims of extreme circumstance.

That only makes up a tiny fraction of the real world cases In reality it's a form of financial derivative.

So the record companies and their financial advisers have an greater financial incentive to spend the money trying to influence politicians rather than adapt to the modern world.

It's a bit like the horse livery stable owners managed to get a law passed making it compulsory for a man waving a red flag walk in from of all oncoming pesky new fangled motor vehicles.