Ethics question

[RayP]

It looks like this part of the forum needs a bit of action so I would like to post an ethics question.

I have digitized my classical CD collection of over 1000 CDs. To whom may I ethically give a copy?

Case 1 - my daughter - one of the happiest days of my father's life was when I asked to investigate his record collection at age 17. We always had something to talk about when we got together. I took my daughter to her first concert at Philly when she was 4 and she burst into tears at the loud noise. She eventually got used to it, but I wouldn't say she has totally got the bug yet. I think it will come in some fashion in future years. She took a visiting friend to hear the Sydney Symphony (Beethoven 5) and reported back that it was a performance that lacked oomph so she is able to judge performances though she famously got bored with Rattle conducting a Mahler 5th with Philly. She will inherit my collection.

Case 2 - my older sister - I trust her judgement when it comes to classical music and I can't say that about too many people. She has a much smaller collection of a 100 or so CDs.

Case 3 - I am doing a house exchange with a family in Germany. The husband plays in the local orchestra. He has about 100 CDs mostly of orchestral and opera, and he is big on Bernstein as composer and conductor. There is virtually no solo or chamber music. To me he needs his horizons expanded and I suspect he won't do it himself.

Case 4 - my brother in law has a few classical CDs that he plays in back ground mode while he works. He intermixes the classical with jazz and light listening.

Case 5 - other devotees of classical

I'm struggling with the dilemma between ownership of the performance with the need to reward the performers and evangelicalism of getting people to enjoy more forms of classical music (and go to concerts).

ray

[Doc B.]

In the case where the goal is to simply expose someone to a broader range of musical ideas, maybe making up a sampler of a few single tracks from various albums of things you think would be of interest would be a reasonable way to approach this. That way you are not ripping illegal copies of an entire album so much as giving the artist/label owner exposure to someone who might not be familiar with their work.

Other than that, as the co-owner of a record label I won't comment about copying entire albums and distributing them other than to say I wouldn't be happy about it if I found out someone was doing it with one of mine.

[Pfenning]

Yea, I agree with Doc. A taste is good, and I've found many new artists this way. My gripe is just ripping them off, for a couple reasons. #1 - I paid for it, why should someone else get it free. #2 - my business is such, that when I quote a job, I need to give my potential customers my basic plan, to sell them on my service. It really crosses me when I loose a bid, and see a machine or tool that looks exactly like the plan I proposed. Sure, it's possible that someone has the same idea as me, but sometimes it's just obvious I was ripped off. I just can't do that to someone else. Spread the love and widen the view, but don't just hand it out. Good topic and thanks for asking (or listening to me).

Pfenning