An email from a friend: this topic is everywhere these days, for good reason,

“Is it legal (as far as copyright laws go) to burn CDs at home and distribute to your friends as gifts? An item on Haley's Christmas list is a CD burner; she wants to make CDs for her favorite music and give it to her friends as gifts ... I am not sure but think gifting is OK but

selling these type of CDs may be illegal - thought you could shed some light ..... “

O.k. literally it is not legal unless they are for yourself only because then those other people will not have to buy the cds for themselves, so the artists lose money and concert tickets go up even higher because it is the only way that we can make our money now. But some people argue that if people like the CD they will go buy it anyway to get the artwork etc, so I don't know the answer for you. I personally don't even like burned cds for myself because you don't get the real thing—you don't get the true artist’s vision---and half the time they don't even work, but a lot of people her age do like them cause they don't have much money, so I kind of think it is the wave of the future unfortunately. So we will see. I think it is inevitable that, A, people will keep doing it, and that B, we will start adding royalties to CD burners and blank CDs to pay the artists that are creating the content that warrants their existence in the marketplace in the first place, and  la princessa , that if it does continue, that concert tickets will continue to go up because musical artists will have no other way to support themselves or their families except from live appearances as more and more unique ways of obtaining recorded music for free become available to the consumer.

I think of it much the same way as store-brand generic products in the drug store or grocery store. You walk into a drug store or grocery store and you see Advil, or Cheerios, or Visine, and then right next to it is that store’s own brand of the same product, an exact replica in fact, trying desperately to look and feel the same to the consumer at half the price. You don't want to buy it—you don't want to be a part of something so insidious and blatantly uncool, but then you compare the prices and you realize that you're going to save so much money and after all it's the same damn thing, so you end up buying it in the end. And before you know it, many of the items in your medicine cabinet and your kitchen are generic store brand products. One can see the similarities in the analogy, but with burning CDs or downloading mp3’s it's even worse because it's just out and out stealing, and it's not even legal. It's a loophole at best. It's just us telling ourselves, ‘well I’ll just do it and why should I care—those rock stars they make so much money anyway…’ or whatever people tell themselves.

The fact is though that most musicians don't make nearly enough money to even support themselves. Think of bands like the Dixie Chicks or TLC filing for bankruptcy in the last few years. Whereas when you’re buying a store-brand or generic product you're condoning this other company stealing the intellectual property—the formula, the ingredients profile—from another company. Tricky business. Either way, we’re all screwed, because we’re all screwing each other. Getting by on technicalities. And telling ourselves that somehow it is all o.k.

For me, I won't take a burned CD if someone offers it to me. I think it's funny when they do, because that's how I make my living, form selling my own cds, so when a person offers me a burned CD of another band or singer, I think it's kind of ignorant and short sighted of them—especially when it's other musicians that do it—that is just retarded—I mean most of them are already so broke they live like bums, barely able to get by, so now they're willing to give away one of the last chances at earning an income they have left—recorded music—that is too funny. I have heard all the excuses in the book to justify burning cds of other peoples’ music and I still don't think any of them fly unless you can find a way to guarantee that the artists are going to paid for that CD you just burned.

People say that they burn it to see if they like it, and if they like a CD by an artist they will always go out and buy it. So that's why when you open up a CD case by anyone under the age of forty, it's filled with burned cds in it. And another thing, you don't walk into your local grocery store and say, ‘hey I've never tried that cereal before. Can I take this out of the store for free? I’ll just shove it under my coat. No one will mind. And if I like it, well then I’ll come back and buy another box. Or next time you go into a restaurant tell them you want to eat all the food free, and if you like it, you'll come back some other time and pay for your next meal.

I have always maintained this notion for as long as I can remember, and that is that if everyone stopped stealing or trying to steal from everybody else, none of us would have to worry about not having enough money. But everyone has to take responsibility for this. You don't sit around and wait for everyone else to make the change. You make the change yourself first. And then if you are bothered by those around you who are still ripping us all off, then do something about it. speak up. write some letters, start a march, a protest, a boycott, an embargo, just do it. But stop with your bullshit that everyone else is doing it, so I'm going to as well.

I have a friend, God bless him, who wanted to send me a broken guitar through UPS so he could insure it for a lot and then open the box and lo and behold the guitar would be broken and UPS would have to pay to fix the guitar. Smart right? what a great way to save money. We’ll never have to pay to fix our guitars again with his plan. This is insurance fraud. His justification is of course that those fucking insurance companies charge so much, I’ll never get all my money back from them that I've paid over the years. “Those fuckers.” That's the old projection game. I’ll project on you so I can rip you off and then you project on me so you can continue to rip me off and we’ll just keep doing that to each other forever. And the people who really lose this game are the poor people who are scared shitless that they will go to jail if they ever get caught, or just the good people of the world who try to pay their bills and do the right thing their whole life and when they least expect it they get fucked up the ass by some large multi-national corporation that considers ripping people off business as usual. This is the same persistent reality that we all live by that keeps our prisons filled with petty criminals who got caught shoplifting, while rich white guys who steal millions and billions are left off the hook, like these fucks from Enron.

Think of Winona Ryder. Sure Winona is cute. I like her as much as the next guy. I grew up having a crush on her. But she knew what she was doing when she did it. She got caught. O.k. so pay your price. Be a man (so to speak). Stand up for what is right. Don’t waste our fucking time and money in court trying to get off while other people go to jail for doing what she did. She should volunteer to go to jail. Just to make the point that she's one of the good guys, that she knows she did wrong and she believes in our system, and she's willing to pay the price. If someone broke into her house and stole her clothes I guarantee she would want them to go to jail for it.

I have another friend who really enjoys sneaking into every place he can without paying. Clubs,  movies, parties. He will even sneak into a charity event if he can. And he makes a lot of money. He’s an attorney. But he just likes to save money whenever he can. I can’t take it when he does that. It's like he doesn’t see the big picture. He doesn’t appreciate what we have here. this free enterprise system that we all take for granted. We’re all trying to do our best to respect each other’s right to earn our living by offering each other goods and services that the other person wants. So what it does is just perpetuate this lack mentality that is so prevalent in our society. This ‘I have nothing and all these big companies have so much’ and all that ‘I hate rich people’ crap. Hello???!!! You're in America. If you want more money, start a fucking business, or work harder, or smarter. That's your right. That's what's so great about America. About being an American.

So no I don't want you to give me the newest Strokes album on a burned CD. And no I don't want you to tell me that your friend burned you my last album and you listen to it everyday and you really love it. That doesn’t help me or honor me or respect me. 

Current Spin: Radiohead, O.K. Computer (bought it J )