I attended the “Downloading Music and Movies – Can They Sue Me?” session at the Tech Fair this week. Although I think most of the session focused on students, I did realize some interesting things.

One is that I think music consumers and the record industry basically have differing views of what they think someone is buying when they purchase media like a CD. For the average consumer, we tend to see the actually music playing through the air as the end product. So, if our friends borrow our CD, they are borrowing the music and not the CD. If I have a co-worker that borrows a CD every once and a while, who kind of likes the CD but not enough to buy it, I might think I could save them the trouble by letting them copy the disc on to their computer. If I see the music as being the end product, and someone could just as easily walk to my office and borrow the CD, that person having a copy on his/her computer is not a big problem. They are not ever going to buy it, and they aren’t going to listen to it more just because they have a copy of it.

Record companies see the actual disc, or the music mp3 file, as the end product. Therefore, if you copy that, you are creating two separate copies of the end product.

I get that, and always have, so that’s why I don’t make copies. The law says the music is for my own personal use, and I can make copies of it for personal use (like ripping a copy of the CD I own to my work computer to listen to as I work). But, if it is only for personal use – is it then illegal to let someone else borrow the real CD? Even if they don’t make an illegal copy? Sounds like it is (which is crazy)

Here’s my question. I love music. I own hundreds of CDs. But I have also cost the record industry hundreds of dollars, because a majority of the money that I spend on music goes to eBay sellers and used CD stores. Some informal polls have shown that most people’s music buying habits did not decrease once they started downloading music (in terms of how much they spend on CDs). The downloading is just on top of their music buying habits. Some of them even report spending more. What has happened is two things. One, as prices go up, people have reported buying less CDs. A few years ago, especially with a sale, they could purchase two CDs with $20-25. Today – they can probably only get 1. The second trend was that more and more people are buying CDs used. That same $20-25 can get you up to 15 CDs if you wait long enough. I just won 8 CDs from eBay for 25 cents. The shipping was $13, but that’s still less than $2 per CD.

Some people have speculated that the decline in CD sales is actually due more to eBay and used CD outlets than illegal downloading. Just look at the music section of eBay any day. Thousands of cheap CDs are sold every day. I don’t understand why the music industry isn’t going after any of that. If you have to pay around $20 for the legal right to play a new CD for your personal use, then why would it be legal to pay $2 for the same rights? This is just one area where the laws don’t make sense.